Keeping an inexpensive term life insurance policy for too long can cost unprepared families lots of money in the long run.

While term insurance is a great way to protect your family from financial disaster, sitting on the same policy until it is too late to replace it with a permanent options can be a financial disaster.

Term life is temporary insurance. It pays a fixed death benefit if the policy holder passes away during a set period of time. For example, if you have a 20-year term policy and you die before the 20 years end, your beneficiaries will receive the face value of your policy.

Once the 20 years is up, the contract expires. The company keeps your premiums and you have to find new insurance, usually at a higher premium. Term insurance helps you to prepare for the unexpected.

Term insurance is the cheapest form of life insurance because it is temporary and not intended to pay out. Young families benefit from term insurance. In many cases, it is taken out to help support young children and a spouse in case the primary breadwinner passes away. That takes a large policy to accomplish.

Many young adults do not have substantial savings and investments yet. They have a lot of their money tied up in new mortgages and student loans. Term policies offer a cost-efficient solution.

But as families mature, the breadwinners grow older and the policies get closer to expiration. Situations change and families need to consider changing their term insurance into a more permanent option.

Many term insurance contracts have a clause that allows the policy holder to do just that.

You could think of it as leasing insurance with an option to buy. You can use the convertibility clause to convert without having to obtain a new insurance policy. For a price, families can transform their temporary insurance into permanent insurance without having to re-apply for coverage or have medical examinations.

Not all policies have conversion clauses. If you are buying term insurance, look for policies that include the clause. They are often more expensive, but well worth it.

For example, you have a 20-year term policy with a 10-year conversion clause. After nine years, you develop a major health problem. You are still within the 10-year conversion period, so you can convert the policy to a permanent policy. By doing so, you will not need a new physical exam and you will receive your coverage at a much lower rate than if your health problems were taken into account.

If the policy didnt have the conversion clause, you would be facing an expiring policy and very expensive renewal premiums if you could renew at all. You should always convert before it is too late.

You should review your policy with your agent on a regular basis. This will help to prevent that your conversion expiration doesnt sneak up on you. When you are within a year of convertibility, you should take the time to look at your plan. Consider your health, finances, responsibilities and goals.

Dont just look at your health in considering whether or not to convert a policy. The older you are, the more expensive you are to insure. By locking in a fixed rate and paying toward a permanent policy in your 20s, your monthly premiums will be much cheaper than if you had waited until your 50s.

Your financial needs transform over time. Your family matures and changes. When you are young, you often need a policy to replace your income and provide for your children. When you are older and your children are grown and your mortgage is paid off, you may find that you dont need such a large policy.

The roughest rule of thumb is to take a multiple of your income. If you only need enough insurance to take care of your family for a few years after you die and set them up until they can get on their feet, buy 4-6 times your annual salary. If you want to take care of them for the rest of their lives, you can look at something quite larger, like 20 times your salary. That gives enough to establish a trust that they can life off of indefinitely.

One strategy involves buying the largest term policy you can afford when you are young. When you can afford more, supplement your term policy with a small permanent policy.

When your term insurance is set to expire, your children will be grown and your mortgage paid off. Then you can look at what coverage you will need.

Amanda was 42 when she was given the difficult news that she had ovarian cancer.

The West Yorkshire woman received chemotherapy treatment after diagnosis, but Amanda became one of the unlucky ones. She had a bad reaction to the chemotherapy and because of this she was unable to work.

So when a tax bill arrived in the post for a large sum of money, re-mortgaging her house felt like the right thing to do. The building society with whom she had the mortgage asked her to bring along her life insurance papers to support the mortgage application.

But to Amanda’s surprise, what she thought was a life insurance policy was in fact critical illness insurance instead. She had been paying out 80 per month for two separate insurance policies with Scottish Provident and Norwich Union and had absolutely no idea that those two policies covered her for critical illness.

As a result, Amanda claimed back a staggering 100,000, which paid not only the tax bill but her mortgage as well.

Many of us haven’t got a clue about the exact sum we’re paying on insurance each year or the details of what we are in fact covered for. Not only are we shocked to find out that we are actually covered for more than we in fact realise, but that we’re doubling up by paying for various types of insurance that actually cover the same thing.

You’ll find that it’s areas such as loss of income, legal expenses, theft and death which most often people wind up paying out twice for when there is no need – mainly because they haven’t carefully read the insurance policy or because it has been the case that some insurance has been put on to some policies as an added bonus.

In a recently released Financial Services Authority survey, it shows that car insurance policies also come with added extras like breakdown recovery and legal expense cover. Paying out for these added extras when you do not want them is an easy mistake to make, according to the survey, because you actually have to physically ring the insurance firm and tell the staff that you do not want them before these ‘options’ are removed from your agreement.

Take permanent medical insurance (PMI) for example. Many aspects of this policy cover you for the same things that Payment Protection Insurance covers you for. But few people realise this and so they take out both.

The FInancial Ombudsman is very aware about the situation surrounding insurance duplication. They say that “people often do not realise until they make a claim that they have been paying for a policy that provides very little, if any, benefit”.

Take a look at your Critical Illness Insurance, as this is one area in which you sometimes get cover from your employer. Find out whether you have this type of insurance with your work before you make the purchase on this policy. Do the same with life insurance, because if you have a company pension scheme, life insurance is something you do not actually need. The reason? Because most company pension schemes have a death-in-service benefit. What this means that should you die while you are still an employee at that particular firm, then large, a tax free payment will be made – a payment which could add up to four times your annual salary at the time of your death, or more.

Other types of insurance you might not need includes mobile phone insurance. The consumer watchdogs will tell you this is something that’s often a waste of money because you have to pay the first 50 of the claim and if you already have home insurance, that insurance might provide you with some protection.

Others include car insurance extras such as legal expense cover. If you are a member of a trade union, then you could have some legal cover anyway.

Some companies trying to get people to take out ID theft insurance. A waste of money? The consumer watchdogs think so because if it is the case your ID gets stolen you are only responsible for the first 50 and most of the time the banks are prepared to waive charges.

In young age you are energetic, full of glamour and perfection, but with time they all fade away. What were all beautiful and filled with colours change into gray. This is all but natures law and you should happily accept this changing phase in your lifetime. As you grow old your body gets easily susceptible to various physical ailments – you need to go regularly to the hospital; do various tests and then undergo treatments and all these cost you a fortune. To make yourself feel safe in old age you should get a senior life insurance.

Senior life insurance pays for almost all the major mishaps in an individuals life. If you are suffering from a chronic disease, senior life insurance will bear your medical expenses. Senior citizens are most susceptible in regard to illness; hence, many government corporations and private companies provide senior life insurances. Life insurance policies even provide money for funerals and other ceremonies after death. So each and every senior citizen should go for a senior life insurance.

Senior life insurance can be obtained for people in the age group of 55-75. You should do a bit of research work before buying your policy to know the authenticity and reputation of that company or discuss with an expert before choosing a senior life insurance.

Some benefits of choosing a right senior life insurance:

1.A fixed premium, which will not increase.

2.You can also avail a no medical life insurance, which is also called as no exam life insurance.

3.You will get death benefits, which will not decrease up to three years.

4.With senior life insurance you will get facility of senior life settlement or life insurance settlement: Senior life settlement is a deal where a senior citizen sells his life insurance policy and in reward gets some cash, which can be utilized for some other purpose.

5.Guaranteed cash value on tax deferred basis.

A senior life insurance benefits also depends upon the insurer. The policy of benefits differs from one company to another. If you are net savvy can get free online life insurance quotes from various web sites and can then go for the best offer.