A recent survey by JWT (formerly J. Walter Thompson), a major, national advertising agency found that Americans are more concerned about life and death and related issues, reported by The National Underwriter www.nationalunderwriter.com Here are some of the results: 79% of those surveyed felt more concerned than before on these subjects but interestingly, only 16% felt they were up to confronting what old age and illness could cost. 48% preferred to ignore the subject. 41% believed they could not afford the necessary level of insurance to take care of those concerns. The survey results also included the facts that: 46% did not have enough disability insurance 35% did not have any life insurance. The survey didn’t include if people had enough life insurance. A large number of people were uninformed about the choices that they could obtain including many insurance products such as second-to-die life insurance (68%) and universal life insurance (53%). Learn your options, there are lots of resources and information at www.lifeinsure.com .

When you decide to purchase life insurance you go through a process called “underwriting”. How do you define underwriting? The orgins of this are interesting. Years ago, when an insurance syndicate such as Lloyds decided whether to insure a ship, the person authorizing the assumption of that financial risk would write his name under the description of the risk. It’s that simple. He’d write under - “underwrite” - the contract with his signature. The underwriting of a life insurance policy is the process of the life insurance company underwriter deciding whether to insure you and at what rate based on your medical history and the activities that you may engage in such as certain sports or flying an airplane. Life insurance has “rating classes” such as preferred rates, standard rates and also “rated policies” which means that you are charged extra because of health or what may be considered dangerous activities. In the last few years very healthy individuals may qualify for newer discounted rate levels such as “preferred plus” or “super preferred”. These are strict levels where you have to qualify by excellent medical test results, certain height and weight ratios, no history of medical difficulties and with a family history of longevity. Cigarette smokers get charged for a smoker life insurance policy which is more expensive. You also may get a higher rate if you use any tobacco. Some life insurance companies don’t penalize quite as much for smoking as others and some charge less if you smoke cigars or chew tobacco. Some even don’t charge if you use an occasional cigar. This requires special research for your case and may not show on the quoting engines. Contact us so we can look at your specific situation. The way to find out where you stand on life insurance underwriting is to go to the lifeinsure.com site, run a quote for yourself and then contact us. When you fill out the term life insurance quote form, the return of premium life insurance quote form or the universal life insurance quote form online there’s a link where you can see some of the requirements for different rate classes. It’s listed as “What is my health?” We have had great success on negotiating great rates for for those individuals that have a medical situation or engage in what insurance companies may consider ‘”hazardous activities”. If you have a specific question about how you would be “underwritten” for life insurance for your specific situation, contact us or call 866-691-0100 and we’ll be glad to research it for you.

Let’s start with a definition of estate planning: Estate planning includes the steps to set up what you or you and your spouse do with your assets after death. Proper estate planning includes steps to minimize legal and financial problems, avoiding excessive fees and expenses and the resolution and minimization of taxes. That’s quite a mouthful but the bottom line is to pass on your assets to whom you want, with the timing you decide, with as little complexity as possible at the same time while maximizing the dollar amount given to your heirs. How does life insurance fit into the picture? Well, life insurance has to do with money arriving when someone dies so it is an interesting estate plannning tool. The most common use is to purchase life insurance to pay the taxes and fees that will be due. Buying life insurance in advance is a recommended planning strategy in that you’re “buying” the dollars at a discount in advance, pre-paying a known cost. A common type of life insurance policy used for estate planning is survivorship life insurance which pays after two people (usually spouses) both die. This kind of life insurance has several different names including: second to die life insurance, joint and survivor life insurance, last survivor life insurance or survivor life insurance. The reason that Survivorship life insurance is used is that estate taxes can be delayed for a married couple until both have died. To learn more about this you can go to the lifeinsure.com page about survivorship insurance. You can also receive a complimentary market search done to obtain the best survivorship life insurance quote for you.