There is so many insurance policies that I am wondering how many types of insurance I need to protect me.

Mortgage insurance: if a spouse dies, then this insurance protects you by paying the mortgage bills.

Home owners insurance: protects you if your house burns down/ weather damages/ things get stolen.

Umbrella Insurance: protects your wealth if someone tries to sue you for injury or whatever.

Homestead act: protects you up to $X amt of dollars in case someone tries to claim your home.

Title Insurance: proves that you own the home clear of odd issues.

Life insurance: due to spouse's death it helps pay the bills and to get by.

I have no kids right now. Is it important to have mortgage, umbrella, and life insurance? I don't have these now . We just bought a house. Please send your opinions. Thank you.

My problem with mortgage insurance (also called decreasing term life insurance) is that Joe Average has MORE bills than just a mortgage payment. Fat lot of good it does to have the mortgage paid, if the house gets reposessed for failure to pay property taxes. Or if you can't keep the lights on.

Umbrella, well, it's EXTRA insurance. You can increase your homeowners liability limit to $500,000 and sometimes $1,000,000 at not much extra cost. So, the answer to that is, are you WORTH that much? If not, then why protect assets you don't have?

Life insurance is there to meet a GOAL. Decreasing term is more expensive than level term, and won't meet most goals very well. Set the goal FIRST, then figure out which product fits your need.

First of all, expect to have at least two different agents in this process if you really want people who know their area inside out.

Mortgage insurance is an easy thing to conceive of because you have a specified liability, but if one of you pre-deceased the other, you would really have other things like your car etc to consider. You should get enough regular life insurance (it will be less convenient, but usually a lot less expensive) to replace each other's income.

Most foreclosures, however, happen because of an illness or injury lasting more than 90 days, not because of death. You two really need to review your disability coverage as well.

I don't pretend to know anything about Property & Casualty, so look for those answers seperately.

Yes! Nice information that you have shared with us.
Thank you very much!

If you are going to consider life insurance, you may want to look at term life insurance.

Term life insurance provides protection for a specific number of years and can be used to provide funds to your family so they can pay off the mortgage, and provide for living expenses, and other needs.

Term life insurance is usually less expensice than whole life insurance.

Most people who choose term life insurance go with level term life insurance. In most cases level term life insurance is less costly than decreasing term life insurance.

Level term life insurance provides rates and coverage that remain the same for the term of your policy. You may be able to purchase level term life insurance for 10, 15, 20 or 30 years.

If someone will be at financial risk by your death, you should carry life insurance.

I would recommend life insurance as solution for protecting your mortgage, overhead expenses, outstanding debt, spouses income for the next XX number of years etc... in case one will pass away prematurely.

There are several things should be considered when choosing the right policy:

1) How much insurance do you need? What exactly will it cover? This can be usually done by an agent through detailed Fact-Finder.
2) Choosing the right company is important, because you want to get the benefit as promised within timely matter, without any strings attached and complications.
3) Choosing a the policy that fits your needs, investment profile and budget.

These are the 3 things you should be looking at when choosing the policy.

Term insurance can provide, greatest amount of insurance, for low cost. But term insurance expires, and does not pay dividends.
Whole life provides insurance for lifetime, does not expire and pays rate of return in terms of dividends. One of the greatest advantages about the whole life, cash value in your whole life policy may be used for other personal needs, such as sending your kid to school, using cash as retirement source or, simply taking monies in form of cash for other personal needs if insured does not die prematurely.
VL (Variable life) -also a great product but it must fit investment profile same for Universal life. It is not recommended for everyone.

There is such thing as ACL (Adjustable comp life) a combination of whole life and term insurance. say 150k of whole and 150k of term. Over the specified period of time the 150k of term will convert automatically into whole. Advantages: Lower cost then traditional whole, allowing policyholder to take advantage of of whole life. This policy can be adjusted for insureds needs and payment flexibility.

This type of policy is available only with few high ratings companies.

Thus, consider doing some research on advantages of Stock companies and Mutual companies.

Mutual companies usually pay higher rate of return (dividends)

Also, check companies ratings before committing. I would recommend going with AAA rated company.

You may find information about companies ratings:
Moody's
Standard & Poor's
Fitch
A.M. Best

Any questions, feel free to contact me

I've been considering investing in insurance bonds for some time, to secure my transactions with clients. However, I'm not entirely sure what the process entails, could someone possible give me a run-down of bonds and the steps I'll have to take to get the process going?

Thanks

Nice thread! I really like your provided information. It's really helpful for me.
Thanks a lot!