Life Insurance - actually, good news

Hi Jerry,

Glad to hear it, especially at your age. I also have a term life policy-- 20 year term-- and am about to write the check for the 20th and last year on the policy in a few weeks. At my age, I'm willing to pay the final year and then let the policy go. But I was somewhere around your age when I took this policy out--and at the time had little by the way of savings and I also had to pay an increased rate due to a previous melanoma. If was your age, I'd be happy to pay a stiff premium to keep my family insured--but now at my age, I'll just sleep with one eye open for a final year in case my wife figures out this is the last year I'm insured Happy New Year.

Jim

Jim - Happy New Year to you also.

142 - Cash value was an option, but the cost was too high for me....I'm just glad I have this option...for the past 4 years I thought there was no way I could get long term life ins.

142,

That's great you signed up for that years ago. 4%...you're right...years ago we would have laughed at that....now it's like gold.

My feelings about whole life have, naturally, changed completely. When I first took out life insurance at age 30 I was totally opposed. I figured term would provide for if by chance I died in my 30s or 40s. My examples back then were....getting hit by a bus, car accident, heart attack, and even cancer...but I never in a million years thought I would be in a situation where my term would run out while still having a disease like cancer.

Rare? Wow...have I heard this word a lot from my doctors:

- .... it's rare to get PC in your 40s
- .... you have a rare, aggressive, type of PC
- .... it's rare that your disease doesn't give off PSA

So perhaps for the new year, rare will be a good thing....oh, and one more thing....when I eat steak once a year...it's usually medium-rare.

Jerry

Post Edited (Jerry L.) : 1/1/2014 6:17:24 AM (GMT-7)

I had a term life policy with Met life.  I knew the term was up soon so I started to shop around and found out I wasn't insurable with PCa.  The term policy did allowed me to convert to another policy without any medical exam before the policy elapsed.  I had a choice of whole life or term.  I took the term but due to the increase in the premium I was only able to afford half of what the original policy was. 

Jerry, when I retired at the age of 60 I took out a term life policy for 20 years. At the time I was healthy and never expected to be where I'm today. I'm glad I did. If I live the 20 years (I'll be 82) I still will not regret paying for it. It gives comfort knowing that my wife will be taken care of.

There are pluses and minuses to both routes. Looking backward, I can envy 142's reliable 4%. On the other hand a term policy made sense for me at the time I and my wife each took one out. I had pretty much nothing by way of savings or retirement accounts after a previous divorce, years of child support and daughter's tuition, etc. But at the time we took out the policies, my second wife and I were starting a business. We were able to buy much bigger term policies than we could have afforded had we bought whole life. And we gambled that we'd be able to stuff enough money away over 20 years so we could someday retire. Somehow, and sometimes in spite of some financial rough patches, we seem to have come out ok. Though I still yearn for the days when we could park some money in safe CDs and didn't have to watch the retirement accounts with an eagle eye.

Jim

I'm investigating Viatical Insurance opportunities too. I have a term policy that I might be able to sell....if anyone has done this and is willing to contact me I would love to hear your experience...my email address is in my profile. Wishing well to all...