Monday, July 23, 2012

What Exactly Is A Life Insurance Dividend?

By Lois Kellam


Would getting a life insurance having dividends help make a good deal of difference as compared with merely purely life insurance? Based on whose perspective we're defining it, life insurance dividends could be viewed in a number of other ways. Essentially, a dividend is actually money provided, typically for a yearly schedule, to cash value insurance plan holders as long as those plans are actually taking part. To put it simply, a participating plan is usually a plan which generates dividends if stock performance is much better than the standard. This kind of plan offers greater premiums than the non-participating plans.

To better understand this, try to imagine a company earning a profit. Once the profit is earned, it gives part of the profits to its shareholders by paying them dividends. In the same way, life insurance gives out a portion of its profit to policyholders. There are many ways by which an insurance company gets to distribute dividends to their clients and owning a stock of the insurance company is in no way a prerequisite to get dividends. One of them is through mutual companies. Most if not all life insurance companies that offer participating life insurance are mutual companies. This means that the policy owners are also the owners of the insurance company.

Dividends can also be found as a means of refunding the premium. Needless to say, this may only cover a part from the premium that makes it totally different from the standard dividends. The main advantage of dividends like a refund is it allows the policyholder to take pleasure from its benefits because it is 100% non-taxable. Note though that dividends aren't paid regularly. This will highly rely on the performance on the investment. What this means is it's not assured. If performance is much better than what's been projected or maybe if the insurance provider has lower mortality experience (the total number of policyholders dying) and expenses, together with high investment returns, then you will have increased dividends. That could be the only time dividends are paid.

Policyholders have the option to consider these dividends in cash or may purchase additional insurance. Dividends may be useful to buy paid up additions to the policy which in turn also earns dividends. You can also use dividends to lower their monthly or yearly premiums. Or even better, dividends are better left on its own to be able to accumulate interest say for ten years or two decades and then have it collected in cash. This will be a lot more beneficial because it is more often than not a significant amount of money the policyholder may use.

Life insurance alone has already been a beneficial investment in protecting loved ones should one be studied out from the picture early. Being forced to get hold of a life insurance with dividends can make it a lot more beneficial as one is able to take advantage of the benefits while living together with all the members of your family. Who says life insurance is actually appreciated only after one has departed? Life insurance with dividends is set in every way the living benefit indeed.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment