What is life insurance and how does it work

What Is Life Insurance? Life insurance is a contract between you and an insurance company. Essentially, in exchange for your premium payments, the insurance company will pay a lump sum known as a death benefit to your beneficiaries after your death. Your beneficiaries can use the money for whatever purpose they choose.

How long do you pay life insurance?

How term life insurance works: The basics. A term life insurance policy is the simplest, purest form of life insurance: You pay a premium for a period of time – typically between 10 and 30 years – and if you die during that time a cash benefit is paid to your family (or anyone else you name as your beneficiary).

Do you get all the money from life insurance?

You can cash out a life insurance policy. How much money you get for it, will depend on the amount of cash value held in it. If you have, say $10,000 of accumulated cash value, you would be entitled to withdraw up to all of that amount (less any surrender fees). At that point, however, your policy would be terminated.

What are the benefits of taking life insurance?

No, you do not get your money back at the end of a term life insurance policy. The policy expires, and that is the end of your coverage. You have paid for the coverage for the length of time specified in the policy, and that is all you will receive.