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Return of Premium Term Life Insurance

Mar 19, 2009 Life Insurance 101, Types of Life Insurance

What is Return of Premium Term Life Insurance?

A Return of Premium Rider (ROP) is available on some term insurance policies.  This rider returns the sum of all annual premium paid(including base policy fee and ROP rider premium) at the end of the initial term period, provided the policy owner is still living and the policy remains in force. If the policy is surrendered before the end of the initial term period, less than 100 % of the premium will be returned.  The longer you wait the higher percentage you will get back.  Adding the return of premium rider will increase the overall cost of the policy.

To determine if the additional cost is worth it, you need figure out what you would earn if you invested the difference.  To make a fair comparison, you need to compare this with other guaranteed investments such as fixed annuities or CD’s, because the return on a return of premium policy is also guaranteed.  However, if you are an aggressive investor you can use a hypothetical rate of return for your analysis, assuming you would invest the difference in a non-guaranteed vehicle.

Keep in mind that if the policy owner dies at any time during the term period, simply buying traditional term coverage and investing the difference will always provide the greatest return, because the policy owner’s estate would receive the death benefit and can also distribute the invested cash.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 at 2:24 am and is filed under Life Insurance 101, Types of Life Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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