Most Effective Ways To Get Cheap Life Insurance In 2019

12 Tips for Getting the Best Deal

Life insurance costs are based on your age, health and lifestyle. Here are some things you can do to get the cheapest plan possible:

1. Don't smoke.
2. Buy when you are young because you can lock in a cheaper rate.
3. Keep your weight in a healthy B.M.I. range.
4. Keep your blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol normal.
5. Exercise and live a healthy lifestyle.
6. Go to the doctor regularly for check-ups, especially if you do have health issues. The insurance carrier wants to know that your condition is under a doctor's supervision.
7. Take the medications you are prescribed.
8. Don't participate in dangerous hobbies like skydiving, or riding motorcycles.
9. Avoid dangerous jobs.
10. Don't use illegal drugs, abuse prescription drugs, or overdo drinking alcohol.
11. Get a plan which requires a blood test and medical exam because if you don't take these tests they will assume you are a high risk and charge you the highest rate.
12. Tell the absolute truth on your application, because if you don't, your death benefit claim may not be paid by the insurance company.

Why Buy Life Insurance?

Personal Uses	Other Uses
Final expenses for funeral and medical bills	Pay estate taxes
Replace income for family	Give to charity
Pay off debts	Provide legacy for children
Maximize retirement income by providing for spouse through life insurance	As employee benefit
Provide for special needs adult child	Life insurance retirement plan for people who have maxed out Roth IRA
Provide for family business expenses and debt
Use instead of long-term care insurance
Pay off mortgage
Use instead of annuity

Do You Really Need More?

The cheapest life insurance is the one you already have. Check to see if you already have this benefit from:

• Work: See if this is a benefit you have through work.
• Credit Cards: Many credit cards have accidental death insurance. This won't help if you get cancer or another illness, but in thinking through what you need, don't forget to count in what you already have.
• Life Insurance Bought by Parents or Grandparents: ask your relatives to find out if they purchased life insurance for you when you were a child. These policies are relatively cheap and don't usually have large death benefits, but they might be all you need if you are mainly concerned with funeral expenses.

People Who Might Not Need It

Not buying any additional life insurance is the cheapest way to go. Here are some people that may not need this expense:

Singles:

 if you don't have any children or parents who depend on your income, you may only need enough savings to cover your own funeral expenses and any debts you leave behind.

Married to a Working Spouse:

 Maybe you are married but you don't have children and your spouse works at a job which would provide enough income for them if something happened to you. You may want some life insurance to cover any debts and funeral expenses, but you may not need a big policy.

Reasons to Buy When You Don't Need It:

 One catch is that life insurance is generally cheaper when you are young and healthy. You may want to buy now so that it won't cost you a lot more later. That is especially true if you expect to have a family or have parents or special needs siblings you may need to support in the future.

Who Definitely Needs It

People who have dependents: If you have someone dependent on your income, you do need life insurance. Maybe you are like me. I didn't even think about it until I had a friend lose her spouse suddenly. I panicked. I was the mom of 5 small children. My husband had a great job, but when I really looked at his benefits, I realized he only had a small amount of life insurance from work. What would I do if something happened to him? How could I take care of my family and work full time? Should I get training for another job?

People who are caregivers. Finally, it dawned on me. We needed life insurance. Not just for my husband, but for me too. If something happened to me, my husband would need to hire childcare and a housekeeper, not to mention someone to do his taxes and cook his food.

How Much Do You Really Need?

Any amount will help your family, so get what you can afford now and increase the amount later when you can. Affordable life insurance is the amount you really need to protect your family from financial disaster. So you need to decide:

How much would funeral costs be? 

Look into your options and make your requests clear to your family so that they won't be driven by guilt into spending more.

What debts would need to be paid off? Think about car, mortgage, schooling, and credit cards.
What income would be available? Think about how much a spouse does or could make if working full-time. If you would not want your spouse to work because of small children, then think about how much income replacement would be required.

How long would that income need to be available? This depends on whether you would want to replace income for a period of time (say, until small children are all in school), or whether you would want replacement income for your spouse's lifetime.

What about health insurance? If your spouse is not working, or if your spouse's work does not provide health, dental, vision and other benefits, you might want to include that in your life insurance amount.

What about costs for college? If you want to provide a college education for your children, you might want to include that in the amount of benefit you purchase.

Other costs? Hopefully, this list will help you think through your own special situation. There may be other expenses your family will face that you need to consider. For example, if you own a family business, you might want to provide money to make sure that can be continued or make provisions for how that could be sold.

Conversion Options Make Life Insurance Cheaper

Age is the main factor in determining life insurance cost. So buying life insurance sooner rather than later means you will get a better deal, especially if you lock in a longer term. What if you can't afford very much life insurance? Try getting life insurance which has a conversion option, which will let you change to a different policy later. I made a mistake on that. Our insurance doesn't have a conversion option, so now I'm having to get new insurance at the age of 52 when the price will be higher.

How is Cost Determined?

Life insurance is not like buying other products. When you want a computer, you shop around to find the best computer at a price you can afford. When thinking about which life insurance you want, you can shop around to different companies, but you won't really know what price your plan will cost until you have:

Applied for a policy and given them health, lifestyle, work and family medical information.
Had a medical exam and blood tests.

Had the insurance company underwriter look at your information and given you a rating.
The rating you get will determine the price you are charged for that amount of benefit. Each company has to send their ratings and the prices they will charge to the State Insurance Agency, so they can't change the price for a certain rating, or give you a "discount."