Blueberry Life

It’s human nature to shut out information until we need it, so if you’re asking “What is life insurance?” there’s no need to feel as if you’re asking an odd question. Besides, there’s more to life insurance and how it works than meets the eye. After reading this guide, you’ll understand life insurance better, and we’ll also look at life insurance and preexisting health conditions.

What is Life Insurance?

As you probably already guessed, life insurance consists of a policy that pays your beneficiaries a sum of money when you pass away. But did you know that you can also get death benefits if you’re diagnosed as being terminally ill? Already, we can see that asking “What is life insurance and how does it work?” is a sensible question! But there are more details to explore and questions to answer. Onwards!

Why You Need Life Insurance

For some, it’s just a matter of leaving a legacy. But life insurance can be very important to a family consisting of a spouse and children. After all, they’re counting on you to make a financial contribution to the household, and without it, they could find themselves in deep water.

The most important consideration is often the mortgage on a home. If you were to die before your mortgage is paid up, your family will get the option of taking over the mortgage. But can they afford the payments? If they can’t, they stand to lose their home if you were to suffer an untimely death.

As for other debts you may have, your family won’t be left with personal liability, but outstanding amounts will be taken from your estate which may mean that your legacy is substantially reduced.

Lastly, there’s the loss of regular income that contributed to household costs and that you would have used to help fund your children’s further education. Without it, they could be left in a very uncomfortable position! At the very least, they will need some time to adjust their earning power before being faced with the responsibility of covering household expenses.

Your life insurance can be calculated to cover all of these pressing needs, making things easier for your family after your passing - and that’s just why most people prefer the security of having life insurance as a backup plan.

Different Types of Life Insurance Explained

There are a surprising amount of different forms of life insurance. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll cover the broad categories that have the most relevance to you, their pros and cons, and why you might choose them.

Term Life Insurance

With term life insurance, you consider the time when your family would be most financially vulnerable if you were to die and provide cover for that period. Once the term expires, you no longer have any life insurance and you don’t need to pay any premiums. Because it’s absolutely possible that you could outlive the term, your insurance company can offer you lower premiums in exchange for better death benefits. When the policy ends, you don’t get anything back, but your family doesn’t need the extra money as badly if at all.

Within this category, you can choose level term or decreasing term insurance. Level term insurance pays out the same amount of money if you were to die at any time during the term. Premiums are fixed, so are death benefits and the premiums are lower than they are for whole life insurance. But there’s an even more cost-effective type of term life insurance that still covers the household costs you were concerned about when you first decided that life insurance was a must-have.

Decreasing term insurance provides a death benefit that decreases year-on-year. Your premiums remain the same throughout, but they are lower than they would be for level term insurance.

The reasoning is simple. Because mortgages, income replacement, and your children’s educational needs are the primary reasons for getting insured, it’s reasonable to suppose that these needs will cost less over time. Mortgage liabilities decrease as time passes. Children become independent and don’t need your support.

Whole Life Insurance

On the surface, this may seem like the best type of life insurance. But consider carefully before choosing it. Whole life insurance means that a set payout occurs no matter when you die. You’ll also keep paying premiums till the day you die. Since it is absolutely certain that everyone dies sometime, your insurance company charges higher premiums.

How Much Life Insurance Do You Need?

This can seem like a mind-boggling question, but it’s not as difficult as it looks. Before deciding how much life cover you’d like to aim for, think about the needs you’d like to cover. Consider them as if you expected to die tomorrow. There’s a good chance you won’t, but it’s always best to prepare for worst-case-scenarios.

Begin with your debts. For most of us, the biggest one will be the mortgage. How much will your family need to pay it off? Next, consider your financial contribution to the household. How much do you spend on necessities each month? How long would your surviving family members need to adjust to its absence? Finally, look to the future, especially if you have children. If they want a university education, how much is that likely to cost?

Tot up the total amounts you expect your family to need, and you’ll come up with an amount that you’d ideally like them to have if you were to die. That’s the cover you want from your life insurance, and you can use it to begin shopping around. You can also use our handy life insurance cover calculator to help you determine how much life insurance you should take out.

How to Make a Life Insurance Claim

On average, it takes about a month, and sometimes, it can take as little as two weeks. The most important thing is to make sure that your family knows you have life insurance. Keep your policy documents with your other important papers to make it easier for your family to navigate the claims process.

Even if they don’t have the policy documents, simply knowing which company provided your life insurance is enough. But with the right details, including your death certificate, they’ll be able to get the claim processed faster.

If your life cover makes provision for terminal illness, you can even make a claim yourself. Of course, that’s provided that your diagnosis fits the requirements specified by your insurance company and you have the necessary proof of it. In this instance, the funds will be paid directly to your bank account, and you can distribute them according to your wishes.

Life Insurance for New Parents

With children on the scene or on the way, a great many people begin considering life insurance for the first time. You’re thinking of their future, their vulnerability as youngsters, and the life you’d like to make possible for them.

Since you’re still relatively young when you start a family, there’s good news for you! The younger you are, the more likely it is that you can get good cover for lower premiums. After all, you can still reasonably be expected to enjoy a long and productive life. If the worst were to happen, your family gets higher benefits in exchange for less investment. And if you don’t die during the term of your insurance, they’ll be far happier than any amount of money could make them.

Life Insurance for Women

Statistically, women are likely to live longer than men, and they’re also less likely to indulge in risky activities or work. As a result, women are often offered better insurance deals than men. That doesn’t mean that both male and female sides of a partnership shouldn’t get insurance. But since women are just as likely to have a role to play in family finances these days, it’s worth noting. After all, the man of the house could find himself just as financially embarrassed following his female partner’s death as the woman of the house may be if her male partner were to die. And if she’s a stay-at-home mum, childcare costs need to be considered too.

What is the Best Life Insurance for a Married Couple?

It’s possible for a married couple or unmarried partners to take out joint life insurance. The policy pays out based on two scenarios. It’s either “first to die” or “last to die.”

In the former instance, the surviving partner gets the death benefit on the death of the spouse or partner, but no longer has their own cover after claiming. In the latter, both partners have to die before any benefit is payable. Further complications arise if the partnership should dissolve.

Although the decision is up to you and your life-partner, it’s generally best to get life insurance as individuals.

Tips for Buying Life Insurance for The First Time

If you’re buying your first life insurance policy, be sure to compare offers. You’re looking for the best possible payout at the lowest possible cost. And since you've realised that life insurance could be a pressing need, you really don’t want the application process to take too long.

All the same, although “angels” may not “fear to tread” here, “fools rush in.” Make it a considered choice that reflects your needs at a market-related cost. It’s a big decision, after all! Balance sensible choices with a well-informed approach, and choose wisely.

Do Life Insurance Companies Check Medical Backgrounds?

All insurance companies will ask you a few questions about your health and lifestyle-related health risks. It’s very important to answer these questions as accurately as you can. If you seem to have deliberately misled an insurer or have been negligent in providing certain details, any policy you take out may be considered invalid when it comes to crunch-time.

Following your questionnaire, some insurers may ask your permission to access medical records, or they may ask you to get doctor’s reports that help them to determine risk.

Depending on the insurer, this could be a major “pain point” for you. With extra digging to do in order to determine risk, many insurers take months to come up with a quote for people with preexisting conditions or health risks. You have extra hassle, and at the end of it all, you may get an inflated quote or even have your application turned down. There may be a way around this: more on that below!

Getting Life Insurance With Diabetes

It can be extremely difficult to get quick responses and reasonable offers from insurers if you’re living with Type 2 diabetes. The general assumption is that you are subject to elevated risk, and there are limits to how deeply most insurers will examine your lifestyle and management of your condition before they’re willing to make an offer. Sometimes, they won’t do so at all. At the very least, a diabetes diagnosis means longer waits for approval plus higher premiums based on an assumption of poor to average management of the condition.

At Blueberry Life, we specialise in insurance for people with chronic conditions, and we work hard to recognise the individual and their choices. Instead of asking for access to medical records and taking months to get around to picking through them, we offer an easier (and more cost-effective) solution for all concerned.

In your questionnaire, we’ll ask about your medication and overall health, and you simply have to tell us how you are and what medicine you use. Then, we send you a home-test-kit. It’s so easy! All it takes is a finger prick. You return the kit and we analyse your blood to determine how well you have your diabetes under control. Based on that, we formulate a quote that’s absolutely tailored to you and your health, and we can do it in under a month.

Meanwhile, we even offer free cover to tide you over until we can make you a final offer. That’s right, free cover! Admittedly, it’s for a limited time, but it should be enough to bridge the gap between your application and our offer. Needless to say, with our medical team’s input and your well-managed diabetes, it could be a whole lot more reasonable than anything other insurers can provide.

With nothing to lose and individual recognition to gain, you can be confident that Blueberry Life has the life insurance answers for the rising number of people who live with health conditions like Type 2 diabetes. If this is you, don’t be seen as a statistic. Be seen as a valued client instead.

The application is easy. We don’t see you as being one of the crowd and that means that we can offer value for money. That’s just what you want from life insurance, and your health doesn’t have to be an obstacle to that. Get into the Blueberry Life! It’s as easy as filling out an online application - all you need is 5 minutes to tell us about yourself.

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What is life insurance and how does it work?