If you’ve started a company from the ground up and are crucial to its survival, you need to start thinking about what would happen if you were no longer around to run it.
Key man life insurance is an interesting form of protection. Back when individuals would spend their entire lives with one company, this type of life insurance would have been an essential component for a few members of the company. Which only makes sense: if you grow with your company and have been there since the beginning, your role in the company’s development is much more crucial than someone who was hired within the last month. These days, individuals are more comfortable with moving and changing careers and companies – it is unlikely that an individual will stay with a company for his or her whole life. But that doesn’t mean that key person life insurance should be obsolete. In fact, if you’re an entrepreneur or are the founder or owner of a small-to-medium-sized company, you will need this kind of life insurance to assure that your company continues to grow and thrive after you can no longer run it. If you’re the key person of your business, your health is tied directly to the health of the company.
If you’re gone, key person life insurance can help offset the costs of recruiting, hiring, and training a successor to your position. This allows your company to transition smoothly and won’t take away from valuable time and profits necessary to keep a business running.
Key person life insurance is typically included in a lot of buy-sell agreements, which allow your co-founder or a majority shareholder to buy out your position should something happen to you.
Key man life insurance is not a stand-alone policy, and you will need a personal policy to provide financial stability for your family. However, key man life insurance can help protect your family after you’re gone.
Before you begin shopping for a key man life insurance policy, it is important to sit down and assess your company’s financial future and to know which kind of policy you should get. For example: whole life insurance, or insurance that remains throughout your whole life and builds a cash value, may be a good choice for your personal life insurance, but should not be your go-to for key person life insurance.
Because key man life insurance is meant to assess the short-term needs of your company, you will be better off choosing a term life insurance policy. These types of policies are less expensive and provide adequate benefits to protect your company’s bottom line. You may want to look for a buy-sell agreement with key man life insurance included. These types of agreements are best for companies with more than one key person.
If you or your co-founder is unable to run the company, this type of policy will allow the company to transition smoothly to the healthy party, minimizing financial damages.
You can work with an agent to find a life insurance policy and can get a personalized, free, and no-obligation life insurance quote in just a few minutes. It’s that easy to start protecting your family’s financial future! Requesting a life insurance quote through AIG Direct is now faster and easier than ever!
With My Term Life Guy, you can get quality term life insurance coverage for less. Call now and save up to 60% on your term life policy compared to the same coverage through other carriers. That means you can get similar coverage for your money – and that’s always a good thing!
Analyze and engage with user feedback, new releases, and valuable insights.
Typically, an individual can get up to 20 times her or his annual income in coverage.
The total coverage amount a person will qualify for often decreases with age, as retirement draws nearer.
For those who are not currently employed, it is still possible to get $50,000 – $100,000 of coverage for items such as final expenses. Unemployed individuals will have to provide information on the application to prove they can afford the premiums, such as disability or retirement income information.
It is possible to get more than 20 times your income for coverage if you have additional assets to protect over and above your income. It is also possible for a homemaker to qualify for the same amount of coverage their spouse has, even without a separate income.
This depends on what kind of policy you apply for.
Typically a No Medical Exam policy can be applied for, approved, and put in force within approximately two business days. No Medical Exam policies are available to clients up to age 60 or so, depending on the insurance company. The coverage amount you can apply for is limited, due to the greater risk the insurance company is taking. (When there’s no physical exam involved, the insurance company has less health information about the applicant.) For healthy applicants, these policies can cost up to twice the rate of a medically underwritten policy. However, there are people who don’t like needles, and the No Medical Exam option is a great one for that reason!
A medically underwritten, or traditional, term policy will typically take about 3 weeks from start to finish. This process can take longer when applicants have health issues and the underwriter orders medical records from their doctor. If this occurs, we let our clients know that they can call and ask their doctor to expedite the submission of the medical records to the underwriter in an effort to speed up the application process.
Most carriers have the same rules when it comes to paying premiums on life insurance policies. The only way to make monthly payments these days is to authorize a monthly automatic draft from your checking or savings account. If you prefer not to make automatic payments, there are some other options. You can receive a bill by mail if you elect to pay quarterly, semi-annually, or annually. Most people choose to make automatic payments for their life insurance for the same reason they do for other bills, such as car insurance: they don’t want their policy to be canceled because of non-payment.
You do not have to send a payment with your application, unless you want to be covered during the underwriting process (which typically takes about 3 weeks). Most people choose to wait until their application has been approved to make a payment and begin coverage. Once an approval is made, you can make changes to the policy to fit your budget if the rate that comes back is different from the one you applied for. Also, most people want to know the exact cost before making a payment to begin coverage. You do not have to provide billing information on the application, either. That information can be collected after an approval has been made and you’ve decided that you want to begin the coverage afforded by the policy.
If you want to secure temporary insurance and be covered during the underwriting period, simply include a payment for two months’ premium. It’s refundable if you decide not to take out a policy based on the final approved rate.
It depends on the pre-existing condition. For example, it’s difficult to obtain life insurance when you’ve had cancer (skin cancer is the one exception) or within 5 years after having a heart attack. On the other hand, it’s fairly easy for people who have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and/or high blood sugar, such as those with type 2 diabetes, to obtain coverage as long as they are under a doctor’s care and the condition is under control.
There are graded benefit and/or final expense policies available for people with greater health risks. The corresponding premiums will be higher, depending on the severity of the pre-existing condition. It’s often beneficial for an applicant with pre-existing conditions to discuss them with an agent before applying for coverage, to increase the chances of a more favorable approval.
hat depends on your needs. A person’s needs change over time. Most term life insurance policies have a premium that increases each year after the initial guaranteed level term period. If you are nearing the end of your initial term period and want to lock in a rate that won’t change for another predetermined number of years, it might benefit you to apply for a new policy and replace, or surrender, the old one.