My husband has been diagnosed with a terminal brain disease (terminal is 15-20 years). He is now 54. He has an insurance policy that is term (275,000). It iw with equitable and they have a special mutualization rate given to policy holders that stayed with them in the early 90's so we only pay about $2 a month for the policy. He can convert it to whole life (without a medical exam). His term renewal, but for the mutualization, would be 104 a month now and goes up to 1,293 in 2030. He can convert that policy to a whole life with a premium of 5000 a year. I think the conversion makes sense. I am not sure if I am missing something. He wants to be able to leave some money to our two kids. I have the same policy, am a little younger and can convert as well. I think for me it makes sense to remain at term.
For the two kids, they have a 50% chance of inheriting what their father has. I wanted to protect their insurability and purchased a 500,000 whole life policy for each of them. If they have what their father has, it affects someone mid life. I think the whole life made sense here.
I would welcome any advice.
Based on the information you’ve provided, it does make sense to convert to whole, but read through the policy and see when the cut off date to convert is. The current premium is really low, and if the last date for conversion is still some time away, you can continue with the term policy to take advantage of these low premiums for some time more. Be careful to keep an eye on the cut off date, because if you miss it, there’s no way you can convert your policy to whole life.
If you are in a good financial position to pay the high premiums for the rest of his life, you can consider getting the policy converted into whole life right away.
Since there is a 50% chance that your kids may inherit the disease, it makes a whole lot of sense to get them insured right away. Look for term with a convertibility option to keep the costs down. For the best term life insurance deals you should shop around on the Internet because online life insurance agencies can give you honest, unbiased term life insurance quotes that fit right into your requirements.
Denise at AccuQuote
Disclaimer: I work for AccuQuote and this is my personal opinion.