Survivorship Life Insurance or sometimes referred to as second to die is a life policy that is mostly used as an estate planning tool. The policy insures two lives and when the second person dies and the monies are needed to pay typically estate taxes the monies are there.
These types of policies can be purchased as an Survivor Variable Universal Life, Survivor Universal Life or Survivor Whole Life. You really need to sit down with a good estate planner to decide which type of policy best fits your need for your situation.
Over the past few years there has been a product called guaranteed no lapse or secondary guarantee.What they have designed is a plan that focuses on providing guranteed death benefits and not building up cash value in the policy. Lastly for the folks who really want to keep premiums down until congress can decide what to do with estate tax reform there are a couple of carriers, John Hancock and West Coast Life who offer second to die term life insurance plans.
These policies are terrific tools to help pay for estate taxes or estate equalization between heirs or when some children are involved in the family business and others are not. But with all the unique planning techniques one of the biggest most interesting aspects of this plan is how the carrier amortizes the cost of the policy between the two insured's which helps keep premiums low. Also since this is a second to die plan most major carriers can take one insured that has serious health issues.
Between choices of a traditional survivorship life insurance or a term survivivoship plan you now have some tremendous options for planning your estate.Life Insurance companies really have become competitive and when it comes to older age underwriting some are real experts.
Ask friends or family if they have done any estate planning and get some good referrals for an experienced Insurance Agent, Financial Planner and Attorney. They will all be critical to help put together the best plan for your individual situation.
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