Senior Life Insurance Site

It seems that, along with education inter alia, one of the hottest topics in this age of user-pays is health insurance. The problem is not just that so many of the elderly haven’t made the right provision earlier in life, but that as they deteriorate and become more seriously ill with life-threatening ailments they have the worry of whether the health insurer will pay up or just drop them from the plan. Health insurance companies have a pretty poor reputation for reneging on their obligations when the going gets tough.

For that reason it’s important that the elderly are aware of the value of life insurance for elders.

Life insurance for elders is not the same as conventional whole life insurance. A whole life policy does not make provision for day-to-day doctor’s visits, prescription-filling, X-rays and ultra-sound tests and hospital stays; it simply accumulates bonuses throughout its life until you die, then pays out.

At least you cannot be declined for life insurance for elders purely on account of your age, but you certainly will be charged a much higher premium in acknowledgement that you are more likely to die and cost the company before the policy is paid for.

For this reason, what the elderly person should consider is a term policy. Term life insurance for elders is tailor-made to meet the exigencies of old age, late-developing illness, bridging cover, top-up insurance or relatively short-term provision. A term policy has no investment value – in other words, it attracts no bonuses – and offers no conversion options such as to endowment or superannuation. The premium remains fixed, and will increase only under extraordinary circumstances, so when the end of the term is reached the policy simply expires and that’s it; unless, of course, the proponent has died in the interim and the policy has paid out.

The advantage of the term policy for the elderly is that the policy holder can insure for a fairly large sum at quite a moderate rate. That’s because the policy is not one of investment; the end value is purely the insured value.

Deciding on just how much the insured figure should be is simple enough in the case of an elderly applicant. If you’re still in the workforce, multiply your annual earnings by 10 and there’s you death cover figure. Should you have retired by the time you come to making this consideration, work out how much your dependents would need on which to get by for at least the next 10 years.

But don’t commit yourself without being able to make a perfectly informed decision. Get advice from a knowledgeable relative or talk to an insurance broker.