Life insurance offers every consumer a way to take care of loved ones for years to come, even if he or she wont be around to put food on the table. The basic idea of life insurance is that during an insured persons lifetime, he or she makes monthly payments to an insurance company. When the insured person passes away, the beneficiaries of his or her policy, usually immediate family members, make a claim and the insurance company writes them a check for the value of the policy. In many cases, the amount the beneficiaries receive is higher than the amount of money the customer put into the policy.
There are two basic kinds of life insurance. The first, called term life insurance, is bought for a discrete period of time at a fixed premium. It includes nothing above or beyond a basic death benefit. This is an increasingly popular form of life insurance. The second kind of policy, known as a whole life insurance policy, is a bit more complicated. A customer contributes to his or her whole life insurance policy on a monthly basis for the duration of his or her life. The premiums fluctuate over time, and tend to follow a gentle upward curve as the customer ages. In addition to...