Life insurance is one of the most important aspects of personal financial planning. For many families – especially those with children – it is the most important part of an individual financial plan, together with disability income insurance. There is nothing else that can reliably step into a family breadwinners’ shoes in the event of his or her death and replace that vital economic contribution he or she makes to the household every month.

With that in mind, here is some great news: Life insurance has never been more affordable due to three main reasons:

1. People are living longer. People are therefore much more likely to outlive a term life insurance policy – reducing the need for the pool to absorb the cost of paying benefits to the beneficiaries of those who do pass away. Advances in modern medicine even in the past decade have substantially reduced the lethality of conditions that used to be common killers, including breast cancer, cervical cancer, leukemias and lymphomas.
2. Increased competition. Thanks to the Internet, it’s now very easy for people to compare rates online and – provided they were still in good health – to make a switch to a new carrier if they found they could save money on premiums while still maintaining adequate protection. As a result, competition among carriers became quite keen.
3. A bull market in stocks and bonds. The overall direction for stocks over the past 30 years has been strongly upward. A massive increase in stock prices boosted life insurance company general funds along with everyone else over the last 30 years. As a result, insurers have not relied as much on premium income. Likewise, a broad decline in interest rates over most of the last 40 years also generated a massive bull market in bonds.  Those also boosted life insurance general funds to the benefit of policyholders. As a result, the price per dollar coverage on term life insurance for healthy individuals is a fraction of what it was 20 years ago.

It’s Not Going To Get Cheaper

Thanks to modern medical and communication technology, it’s now possible to deliver meaningful amounts of protection – $500,000 and up – to young people in good health for the price of a couple of pizzas a month, in many cases. But that is only for those with acceptable medical records and who are in good health. As you get older, or as your health situation changes, your premiums will get higher.

For this reason, for the vast majority of individuals, now is the best time to qualify for coverage and get a policy in place. Tomorrow could bring changes in your health that may make it impossible to get insurance at any price. But by acting now and contacting Doeren Mayhew Insurance Group’s life insurance advisors, you can preserve your options and get large amounts of life insurance coverage in place now – at the best rates you will likely ever see. Tomorrow is not promised to any of us.