Contractual Protection
A life insurance policy contract has numerous contractual safeguards for your benefit:
- conversion provision
- "free look" period
- grace period
- incontestability by the insurer
- misstatement of age
- policy loans
- reinstatement of lapsed policy
- suicide exclusion clause
These provisions are required by the Uniform Life Insurance Act.
Tip: read your policy contract carefully
Additional Guarantees
Besides the mandated provisions, insurers can add additional guarantees
Guaranteed Rates
Most policies guarantee the rates for the cost of insurance. So the insurer cannot increase your premium rates if, for example, you were a nonsmoker and became a smoker.
Note: some policies have rates that increase with age (e.g., every 10 years with term 10, yearly with Yearly Renewable Term)
page revision: 24, last edited: 10 Jun 2007 21:31