Overall, an estimated 42% of Americans would experience a financial hardship within six months of the primary wage earner in their household passing away. Often, that’s one of the main motivators for purchasing a life insurance policy — it functions as a financial safety net for the household. In most cases, the journey toward new policies begins with life insurance quotes.
Life insurance quotes allow aspiring policyholders to examine coverage and costs before committing to a policy. However, if you want the estimate to reflect the true cost, you need to get the most accurate life insurance quotes possible. Here’s how to do it.
Understand Your Coverage Needs
The first step to getting accurate life insurance quotes is fully understanding your coverage needs. By knowing how much coverage you want, how long the policy needs to cover you, and similar details, it’s easier to provide correct information to the insurer during the initial application process.
When you’re calculating how much coverage you need, start by determining how much it would cost to pay off all of your significant debts, such as mortgages, vehicles, medical bills, and other high-payment or high-balance accounts. Additionally, factor in living expenses for household members and their future needs, such as college expenses or ongoing retirement income. It’s also crucial not to overlook final expenses.
Essentially, you want to outline everything you want a payout from the policy to handle. That ensures you’re working with a reasonably precise figure from the beginning.
Think About Your Budget
When you’re looking for a new life insurance policy, factoring in your budget is essential. However, it’s also critical to note that many people overestimate the cost, with around half of Americans overestimating by threefold.
Know how much you can reasonably support based on your income level and current expenses. With that, you can determine if any subsequent life insurance quotes are more than you’re comfortably able to spend.
If you want to prepare for that possibility, identify policy features that you can potentially adjust to lower the final cost. What’s best to target varies depending on your situation, but that allows you to get ready to change the details before you review initial quotes.
Provide Detailed Personal Information
In many cases, the questions asked on life insurance applications can feel highly personal and even borderline invasive. But providing accurate personal information is essential. By knowing all of the details, the insurer can factor in all of those data when creating your life insurance quote, reducing the odds that changes will occur as the application moves forward.
Additionally, attempts to hide details that may lead to higher rates rarely work out. Many life insurance providers require medical screenings, and those often reveal information about health conditions or lifestyle choices that would impact your rate. Plus, lying on a life insurance application could cause an issued policy to become void once the dishonesty is discovered. If that happens, penalties could apply, including potentially getting dropped by the insurer. If the lies aren’t found until you pass away, it could cause the insurance provider to refuse to pay out, leaving your loved ones with no financial support.
As a result, honesty is the best policy. Make sure you provide all of the requested details, being as clear as possible. Then, your odds of getting accurate life insurance quotes go up significantly.
