Life Insurance – Cool Cartoon
A relative has just died. He had a life insurance policy with you listed as the beneficiary. There’s just one problem: the life insurance policy is missing. You have no idea which insurance company wrote it.
If you find the missing life insurance policy in the future, are you still eligible to receive the death benefit?
Hope they paid their insurance bills
If you’re a beneficiary and you find the lost life insurance policy shortly after the insured dies (within six months to a year, for example), claiming the death benefit should be trouble-free.
First, determine if the insured had term or permanent life insurance. If the insured held a term policy, you’ll receive the death benefit if he died before the end of the policy term. If he died after the policy expiration date, you would get nothing.
If the insured had a permanent life policy, you’ll receive the money if the death occurred while the policy was “in force,” meaning all premium payments were made up until the time of death. If the death was a while ago, you’ll receive the benefit with interest from the date of death.
If the life insurance policy lapsed — meaning the insured stopped making premium payments before he died — there’s a chance you might get nothing. When a permanent life insurance policy lapses, most insurance companies switch its status from permanent insurance to one of two options:
“Extended term” — The insurance company uses the cash value of the policy to buy a term life insurance policy for the same death benefit using the cash value of the policy. The death benefit will continue for the longest period the cash value will purchase.
“Reduced paid up” — The insurance company will keep the policy in force permanently, but will reduce the death benefit.
Gerry Brogla, an actuary for State Farm, says in the majority of the cases at his company, the permanent policy continues as extended term if it lapses. At State Farm, extended term is the default option for most permanent policies.
If the policy lapses, and the extended-term period expires before the insured dies, the policy is worthless and the life insurance beneficiary will get nothing. If the insured dies before the extended-term period is up, the beneficiary will receive the death benefit. If the policy lapsed because the insured died (thus ending premium payments and causing the insurance to be placed in extended-term status), the beneficiary will still collect the full death benefit, regardless of when the extended term was up. The beneficiary always needs to supply the insurance company with a death certificate to verify the date of death.
There is no time limit during which a life insurance beneficiary must step forward to collect the money, according to Jack Dolan, spokesman for the American Council of Life Insurers. “If a person shows up 30 years after [the insured's] death, the company still makes good on it,” Dolan assures.
What happens if no one ever reports the death?
If the insured dies and the insurance company does not learn of the death, the policy lapses. Insurance companies will take steps to find out why a policyholder stopped making payments.
When an insurance company stops getting payments, it sends letters to the insured informing him the policy may lapse as a result of unpaid premiums. If the letters go unanswered, the company might initiate a search to find the insured. If that comes up empty, the company will then lapse the policy.
If a beneficiary to a policy never steps forward, it unfortunately means the insured paid money to a policy throughout his life and his beneficiaries never see a penny. This is why its a good idea to make sure beneficiaries are aware of any life insurance policies you have.
If you’re lucky, the state may have your money
In some cases when a beneficiary fails to claim a death benefit for several years, the money is transferred to the state where the insurance policy was purchased under the escheat laws.
If a company knows an insured died and it cannot find the beneficiary, it must turn the full death benefit over to the state comptroller’s department within three to five years of the insured’s death. The money is transferred to the state where the insured bought the policy. The money is considered “unclaimed property” and gets lumped in with dormant bank accounts and uncollected rent deposits. The comptroller’s department maintains a database that lists the names and addresses of lost life insurance beneficiaries.
Many states will try to contact life insurance beneficiaries in an effort to pay the death benefits. In Texas, for example, the names and addresses of the beneficiaries are published annually in each county in the state. In New York, the Web site of the New York State Comptroller’s Office of Unclaimed Funds has an online search to find any unclaimed death benefits owed to you. You can find out the procedures in your state by contacting the office of your state comptroller or treasurer.
Keep in mind your chances of finding the policy with the state are slim. The insurance company has no obligation to hand the money over to the state if it’s unaware the insured died. In most cases, it’s the beneficiary who contacts the insurance company.
Also, the insurer only transfers the money to the state three to five years after it cannot find the beneficiary but knows the insured died. If the state doesn’t have the death benefit, it’s likely the insurer is still looking for the beneficiary or doesn’t know the policyholder has died.
Unclaimed death benefits are rarely transferred to the state. Dave Potter, a spokesman for Hartford Life, says less than 1 percent of his company’s death benefits go unclaimed.
Del Chance, a life insurance claims manager at State Farm, says, “Turning over life policy benefits to an individual state after the death of an insured is extremely rare. State Farm utilizes their own search techniques as well as outside vendors to locate lost beneficiaries in the event of the death of one of our insureds. By and large these procedures have always located the beneficiary.
Tips for making sure your life insurance beneficiaries get your death benefit:
1. Give your beneficiaries your policy information. It can be a difficult and awkward conversation, but an important one.
2. Keep all your financial records (especially your life insurance policies) in one place. Don’t force your beneficiaries to search your house from top to bottom after you die.
Tips for looking for lost life insurance policies:
1. Go through canceled checks or contact your relative’s bank for copies of old checks. Look for checks made out to insurance companies.
2. Ask those who may have known about your relative’s finances. Speak with the relative’s lawyer, banker or accountant. Also contact the relative’s insurance agent.
3. Contact your relative’s past employers. They might know of possible group life insurance. The insured might have also purchased supplemental life insurance through work.
4. Check the mail for a year. Premium bills and policy-status notices are usually sent annually.
5. Look at income tax returns for the past two years. Check for interest income from policies or expenses paid to life insurance companies.
6. Contact the Medical Information Bureau. If your relative bought life insurance fairly recently, there might be a trail of the companies to which he applied. The Medical Information Bureau (MIB) maintains a database that might show if insurers requested your relative’s medical information within the past seven years. Record searches can be requested through the MIB’s Policy Locator Service and cost $75. The MIB says that nearly 30 percent of searches turn up leads.
Watch the video related to life insurance
Visit www.aniboom.com for more Animation an Cartoons. Insurance agent attempts to take on one of mankind’s greatest enemies – time and fate. Created by Roy Iddan If you wanna chat with me facebook: www.tinyurl.com MySpace – www.myspace.com Twitter – www.twitter.com If you liked this animation, don’t forget to subscribe, you know you want to .
Help answer the question about life insurance
What is the best life insurance company to work for with great commission?What life insurance company is the best in the nation to work for and why? I am doing research and trying to figure out which life insurance company is best to work for or what is the best strategy working in the insurance field.
About Author
Visit Insure.com for a comprehensive array of comparative auto, life and health quotes, including a vast library of originally authored insurance articles and decision-making tools that are not available from any other single source. Insure.com is dedicated to providing impartial insurance information to consumers. Visitors can obtain instant quotes from more than 200 leading insurers, achieve maximum savings and have the freedom to buy from any company shown.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Posted by American Car Insurance on May 16th, 2009 filed in life insurance | 18 Comments »
Top incoming search terms for this post
18 Responses to “Life Insurance – Cool Cartoon”
Leave a Comment
-
Link Partner
May 16th, 2009 at 3:33 am
O_O
May 16th, 2009 at 4:32 am
cool ending. and a cool way to kill another man
May 16th, 2009 at 3:59 am
Agencies make their money from First Year Commissions (FYC) on new policies, and renewal commissions and service fees on policies which have been on the books beyond the first year.
If an agent works for an established agency, he/she will get paid a percentage of the total FYC. The total FYC could be anywhere between 40%-120%, depending on the insurance companies the agency represents, and what type of policy is being sold. Health policies pay a lot less than life insurance policies.
Of the total FYC, the appointed sub-agent would receive anywhere between 50% and 90%, depending on the sub-agents contract with the agency. Most agencies will pay advance commission on 75% of the sub-agent's FYC.
Example:
Let's say that the sub-agent writes a life insurance policy, and the annualized premium is $1200. ($100.00 per month). Let's assume that the agency's FYC is 100%, and the sub-agent's FTC is 80%. The agency's FYC would be $1200, and it's advance would be $900 (75%). The sub's FYC would be $960, and the advance would be $720 (75%). The balance would be paid as earned on the final 3 last payments of the first policy year premium. If the total ANNUAL premium was paid initially with the application for the same policy, it would be a little less than $1200, around $1162 give or take. ALL FYC would be advanced in this case.
Once the policy is in force for 12 months, renewals and/or service fees will be paid, 2-20%, depending on the carrier, and the sub-agent would get his/her percentage of that. (I had a company that paid $100% FYC and 20% renewals)
Some companies pay bonuses, based on your total production and persistency rate, the percentage of business that stays on the books.
If you work for an insurance company as an employee/captive agent, your commission rate will be somewhat less, but your benefits will make up the difference, such as company-paid retirement, 401K, health and life insurance. In this case, your commissions would be put in a commission pool, and you would draw from that on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. When you initially start selling for one of these companies, you are on a guaranteed salary for a specified period of time, while you build your commission pool. Some of these types of companies will guarantee your salary, (based on production quotas), for up to three years, on a depreciating basis.
After the first year, you start earning renewals/service fees. Let's say that over time, you build up your book of business to $500,000 of life insurance annualized premium, and your renewals are 3%. Your base pay would be $15,000, plus your FYC and bonuses.
Some of the captive companies will offer you an established book of business, with renewals and service fees. It's possible to be offered an agency which is paying $300-$500 or more per week, which would either go into your commission pool, or be paid as part of your initial guaranteed salary. If you are assigned to an existing book of business, you have all those policyholders as potential prospects for new business, along with their family members and other people they know.
Here are some names of companies that have guaranteed starting salaries: (Not in any particular order)
New York Life, Met Life, Monumental Life, American General, American National, Western-Southern Life, Prudential, Liberty Life.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:32 am
There are two types of Insurance; Permanent and Term.
Permanent Polcies remain at the same monthly cost for the rest of your life.
Term policies remain fixed for a set number of years. After the set number of years the policy either terminates or can be rewriten for the same length of time, but you'll now be evaluated at your new age, not the age you are now.
Permanent Policies are similiar to buying a home. The policy builds Cash value and could potential increase your death benefit. You can take a loan out against your own cash value or should you cancel the policy at a later time, you will get the cash value paid out to you at that time.
Term policies are like renting. After the set term (5, 10, 20, 30 years) each party walks away. You don't get any money back, but you'll have paid less over the course of the 10 years.
If you were to get a 20 yr term policy now, at age 50 your policy would end (unless you had already died). You could then get another policy, but they'd rate you as a 50 year old, not a 30 year old. and at each of these 20 year renewals, you'll have to go through medical screening again.
If you were to get Permanent Policy now, you'll have a higher premium now, but at age 50 you'll still be paying the same amount as you are now. At age 70 you'll still be paying the same amount as you are now. At age 90? Same amount.
To figure out how much coverage you'll need, here's a handy tool: L.I.F.E.
L: Liabilities: mortgage, car note, student loans, credit cards
I: Income replacement: 5 to 10 times your annual income (though in your case, each of you have another 30-35 years working life in you, you might want more)
F: Final Expenses: Typically $10-25 k
E: Education: Education for your spouse, should they need to change careers to maintain their standard of living after you pass and/or college tuition for any childre you may leave behind.
So, with a $200k mortgage, $25k car loan, and $15k Student Loan, your "L" is $240k.
If you're making $50k annually, you'll need $500k for "I."
Let's call "F" at $15k
"E"? Well, 2 kids at $20k per year for 4 years each translate to $160k.
This mean you'll need $915,000 worth of Life Insurance.
I have my Life with State Farm. It's also giving me a discount on my car insurance.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
min 5.51… what a punch line…
May 16th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
lol awsome
May 16th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
You may want to try a website that compares multiple companies at once to get you the best price. I am paying less than ½ after I did.
http://top-usa-health-insurance-comparator.blogspot.com/
Take care,
Tena
May 17th, 2009 at 5:32 am
laughing out loud
great short
May 17th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
You can compare the quotes of various company here:
For Life Insurance :
http://free-best-life-insures-comparator-usa.blogspot.com/
For Health Insurance
http://top-usa-health-insurance-comparator.blogspot.com/
Hope this help
May 17th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
buy leads to work for now, and invest time and money into building your own marketing so that you will someday be able to generate your own leads.
May 18th, 2009 at 1:09 am
hello i am a sweet little boy. i need your help and since you read hello you cant get out. i was killed with my family in a car crash in 1967. i have no face and all thats left is scars if you dont post this on ten videos then i will slit your throat at the most random time today or tommorow. okay i have a confession. i am a consultant to the boy and i am locked in his cellar i need your help and no matter what you do he will still kill you. have a great day.
May 18th, 2009 at 4:38 am
nice animation. but whats with the wife? she die or leave him?
May 18th, 2009 at 6:28 am
You can buy a separate life insurance policy on your own, in addition to requesting life insurance from your employer, if they offer it.
To get your own life insurance policy you can contact a local life insurance agent, or visit a life insurance quote service to request free life insurance quote comparisons online from several insurers. You can learn about term life insurance at http://www.term-life-online.com
Term life insurance offers you temporary life insurance for 1-30 years. It costs much less than permanent life insurance, because it is temporary, and builds no cash value within the policy.
Many young families choose 10, 20, or 30 year level term life insurance because it offers the most coverage at the lowest cost.
Level term life insurance provides coverage and premiums that remain the same each year for up to 30 years.
If you want, you can request life insurance from your employer, but you may have to pay for it, and if you leave your company, or get laid off, the group term life insurance plan ends. You may be able to convert it to a permanent life insurance plan, but it would cost you a lot more. And, if you waited until later to get your own life insurance policy, you may not be able to qualify for coverage if you develop a health condition.
You may want to consider a term life insurance policy for you and your husband. Imagine what it would cost to replace everything you do for your family, and will be doing for your growing family once you have a child.
Bets of luck to you and your husband. And, Congratulations!!!
May 18th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
i didn’t get it… what it has to do with Life Insurance.
Thanks for the nice cartoon
May 19th, 2009 at 3:58 am
thats cool
May 18th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Allstate is by far the best. They are ranked in the top 50 employers book.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:08 am
May 19th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Basically insurance only works when a large groups of people own that particular insurance. Everyone pays to protect their income, but not everyone is going to use their insurance. So that's how basically insurance companies stay in business, unless something extraordinary has happen in this country where there's lots of people are filing for claims and the insurance company can't pay them all (such as the Hurricane Katrina event).
What is whole life insurance?
1) Its a level term insurance to a specified age (usually to age 95, 98 or 100) plus cash value.
2) It is very expensive when compared to term insurance
3) Cash value grows at a very low rate of return. In the first 10 years, you see a negative return on your money. But long term average is anywhere between 1-4%, depending on the company.
4) If you want to take money out, you have to borrow it and pay loan interest of 5-8%.
5) If you die someday, the insurance company pay the face amount of the policy (minus loans and missed premiums) to the beneficiary, but they keep all the cash value.
6) If you do get to live by the end of policy date (when you around age 100), the insurance company pay you the cash value, but you lose the insurance.
There's only one reason why that agent is trying to sell you whole life insurance: MONEY!
Next thing you'll know, that agent would try to sell you universal life insurance, a product that is more horrible than whole life, but it pays out more commissions.
Go with your instinct and find a different company who would listen to your needs. Try this site
http://free-best-life-insures-comparator-usa.blogspot.com/
Here you can get quotes from different life insurance companies in your area, its the best way to find an affordable life insurance with a reliable company.