How to Find the Best Whole Life Insurance Policy

Whole life insurance is a good policy to buy if you:

• Need coverage that lasts for your entire life.
• Want the payments to stay the same (called level premiums).
• Want a guaranteed return on the cash value that builds up within the policy.

Before you buy, ask a financial advisor if you need whole life insurance, rather than another type of permanent insurance or a term policy. Whole life insurance fits the bill for some consumers, but term life insurance is sufficient for most people. Consult a fee-only advisor, if possible. These advisors don’t make commissions from sales so they’re more likely to recommend the best products for your situation.
Assuming whole life is right for you, here’s a list of the biggest sellers and some tips on finding a good policy.
  
Choose the right amount of coverage

To find the right coverage amount, decide what you want the policy to accomplish. A relatively small policy — $10,000, for example — may pay for a funeral. You might need a larger policy if you have other priorities, such as funding a trust for a child with special needs.
Not all insurers that offer whole life sell policies in small amounts of coverage, and those that market small policies don’t always sell large ones.

 Understand the different approval processes
Some whole life policies offer a simplified application process. You answer some health questions, but you don’t have to take a medical exam. Others ask no health questions and promise that you’ll be accepted.
These options are worth considering if you’ve been turned down for standard life insurance due to health problems — but you can find more affordable coverage if you’re in good health, and the policies have a few other downsides. The death benefits offered are relatively small, and the costs per $1,000 of coverage are higher than for policies that require a medical exam. In addition, these policies don’t pay the full death benefit if you die within the first few years of coverage.
Even if you have some health issues, you can generally find the best price by applying for a “fully underwritten” policy that asks health questions and requires a medical exam.

Look at the rate of return on cash value

Whole life insurance policies feature a “cash value” savings account. A portion of your premium is invested in the account, which grows slowly on a tax-deferred basis. You can borrow against the cash value, use it to buy more coverage or surrender the policy for the cash. (The death benefit is reduced if you don’t repay a loan, and it disappears altogether if you surrender the policy.)
Whole life insurance policies guarantee a minimum growth rate on the cash value. Some policies can perform even better if they earn dividends, which are portions of the insurer’s financial surplus. Only mutual insurance companies, which are owned by policyholders rather than outside shareholders, pay dividends. They aren’t guaranteed, but they are worth taking into account when you compare policies.  
Life insurance companies provide illustrations of how each policy’s cash value could perform. Always ask which parts of the illustration are guaranteed. For example, a mutual insurer will give cash value projections based on the payment of dividends, which aren’t guaranteed.

Examine extra policy features

Riders are coverage features you can add to your policy, usually for an extra cost. Examples include a chronic illness rider, which lets you access some of the death benefit if you have a serious illness, and a “disability waiver of premium” rider, which lets you skip payments if you become disabled. Available types and costs of riders vary by insurance company. Make sure your policy has the riders you want.

Check the insurer’s financial strength rating

Find the financial strength rating of each insurer you’re considering. You can find these through rating firms, such as A.M. Best. Financial strength is important because a strong company has a better chance of being around decades from now to pay claims. Any company with an A.M. Best rating of B+ or higher is a good choice; companies rated B and below are more vulnerable, in A.M. Best’s opinion. 
All of the largest life insurance companies, for example, have solid financial strength ratings.

Compare prices

Get life insurance quotes for the same amount of coverage from several insurers to compare prices. You may find that rates for whole life insurance vary widely.

source: https://www.nerdwallet.com

Universal Health Insurance in the United States: Reflections on the Past, the Present, and the Future

We used to say that the United States shared with South Africa the distinction of being the only industrialized nation without universal health insurance. Now we don’t even have South Africa to point to. Almost 20% of the nonelderly population in this country lacks health insurance at any given time, and the disparities in access to care and health outcomes are very much greater in the United States than anywhere else from which there are reasonable data.

It is relevant to the politics of health care that the high end of the American health care system compares favorably with that anywhere in the world. Some significant fraction of all the total knee replacements in the world are performed in the United States. If you live in certain urban areas and you develop certain tumors, you will get the most sophisticated and advanced treatment anywhere in the world and have outcomes that are at least comparable to those anywhere. But there are considerable pockets of the population for whom access to health care and the effects on health status are much more similar to those of poorer and less successful Third World countries than they are to those of the rest of the industrial world.

It is not as though these disparities are saving us any money: by any measure, we spend substantially more on health care than any other nation. Indeed, we spend more money on health care for Americans aged 65 years and older than is spent for the entire population of any other nation.

So the United States is by international standards quite peculiar, and the question is why. This is not just an academic question; to understand how to move effectively toward universal health care in the United States, it is essential to understand how we got to where we are. Freud said that all psychiatric phenomena are overdetermined; that is, there are more explanations than you need to produce the outcome, and that is probably true of most of the social sciences as well. I have identified 10 explanations for why the United States is so peculiar, all of which are true—and any one of which by itself would probably be a sufficient explanation. These explanations fall into two broad categories: historical-cultural and structural-political.

Source : https://www.usa.gov

Continuation of Health Coverage: COBRA

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) provides continuation of group health coverage that otherwise might be terminated. COBRA contains provisions giving certain former employees, retirees, spouses, former spouses, and dependent children the right to temporary continuation of health coverage at group rates. Qualified individuals may be required to pay the entire premium for coverage up to 102 percent of the cost to the plan.For more COBRA information, view An Employee's Guide to Health Benefits under COBRA (PDF, Download Adobe Reader).

Get More Information or Help

If you have questions or complaints about your COBRA coverage, contact your plan administrator or the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA).
Note: In some cases, you can change from COBRA coverage to Marketplace health insurance coverage.