By Vince Davis, Vince Davis State Farm Insurance
Guest Column
Whole Life Insurance, of the many variations of insurance, is my favorite. What is whole life insurance? Whole life insurance helps your family prepare for the unexpected. The guaranteed death benefit can help replace a family’s loss of income, help with mortgage costs or educational needs — or to leave a legacy for the next generation.
Over time, these policies build cash value that grows tax deferred. This “living benefit” can be accessed during your lifetime. State Farm Life Insurance Company or State Farm Life and Accident Assurance Company (residents of NY and WI only) can help. I never have to worry about whether a whole life policy is in effect and is going to pay. After the first two years of contestability, it will always pay.
Whole life policies are the most dependable life insurance policies on the planet. They pay, unless of course the beneficiary murders the insured. Then he or she will not get the money. They will go to jail. Incidentally and, unfortunately, we had a case like that.
If there is a material omission in the first two years and that material omission culminates in the death of the insured, then it will not pay. Material means that if the insured knew about the omission and if the insurance company knew about the omission, they would not have issued the policy.
It would apply, for instance, if you had cancer. You knew you had cancer and concealed this fact from the insurance company. You would have had to fraudulently gotten the policy. Then you turned around and died of cancer. Then the insurance company would not pay.
But if you took out a policy and you were cancer free, then you subsequently got cancer then the policy would pay. In over four decades since I have been in this business all policy death benefits have gotten paid with one exception. That exception is when the so-called father murdered his own child.
I have been in the insurance business for a while. I have not had a policy in which a person died and the company didn’t pay. My office often pays several death claims weekly. I’d estimate that I’ve sold over 7000 life insurance policies in my career. There are many different types of insurance. But it all boils down to Term or Permanent.