Death is usually not an easy subject because passing into eternity brings sorrow from separation of a loved one – but also joy for those who believe in God’s grace and mercy – and I dare say that hospice care could be included as a mercy from above.

Still, if you took a poll you would find that no one wants to think about dying.  But dying is a fact of life – The Bible tells us ‘Just as people are destined to die once’(Hebrews 9:27)   and we will all go to our eternal destination at our appointed time. 

Life ends in many different fashions, many of which are quick, leaving no time for planning or arrangements. Fortunately, for those who think well ahead there are services that you can take advantage of for yourself or other loved ones which will greatly ease departure on all involved in the case of slower acting, terminal illnesses.

If our impending death will come about from a serious illness, such as cancer, we often time have some time emotionally and physically to prepare for the passing.  One of the best resources available to help patients and their families and loved ones cope with the dying process, once the attending physician has determined that life will most likely not extend past six months, is through Hospice Insurance. 

Hospice was originally developed by Medicare to provide support and comfort (palliative) to the patient and his/her family.  It is less costly for the insurer to pay benefits for providing comfort than to pay benefits for desperate, last ditch attempts through medical care to cure the patient, when there’s little hope of success. These days, a myriad of private health insurance companies offer this type of coverage. No one can force a patient into enrolling in hospice – it must be a decision made by you and your family.  If you feel the need and desire to still receive medical care with the hope of a cure up until your last breath, that is certainly your right and you may do so.  The important thing to remember is you cannot be enrolled and covered by hospice insurance AND on a medical insurance plan at the same time.

From past conversations I’ve had with clients, I have learned that there are many misconceptions regarding hospice care.  Some people believe that once you are on hospice, you cannot go to the hospital again, you cannot call 911 in an emergency, or you cannot try a new type of treatment to try to cure your ailment.  All of these are not true.  The fact is, hospice can be revoked by you and restarted by you at any time.  This means that you can go back to your regular health insurance benefits any time you choose to try a treatment, and then go back on hospice if necessary.

Hospice provides many benefits to the patient and his/her family, including home visits by a licensed healthcare practitioner (such as a psychiatric nurse or social worker or counselor), who is part of your particular hospice’s network of providers.  They help with feeding, dressing, bathing, reading to the patient, and can even run errands and do laundry.  Ultimately, hospice provides grief support for the caregiver and family following the death of the patient.

Many people find hospice to be a Godsend.  A special woman I worked with for many years succumbed to cancer 2 years ago.  She bravely hung on to the hope of life until the very end – but during her last month of life, her husband opted to enroll her in hospice when the doctors said there was nothing further they could do.  Hospice was a tremendous help to her and her family. They installed a hospital bed in her home, making the care giving easier. After she passed away, they continued to provide grief support and counseling to her husband and daughter, for quite some time afterwards.  The family was extremely thankful for the wonderful and caring ways of the hospice team.

Whether you need immediate action or just want to look a little way up the road toward the inevitable, hospice will be happy to answer any questions you have and help you make the hard decisions a little easier.

Jennie

Jennie Segurado – A lifelong insurance professional

                                        in South Carolina

Reach Jennie at:      JennieSegurado@Insurance.sc 

Cheap term life insurance is a valuable financial safety net for you and your family. There are a many options available depending on your age and overall health. Selecting the right cheap term life insurance for you specific needs is a very important decision that shouldn’t be taken carelessly. Following are some thoughts that need to be addressed.

Primarily, you need to decide which company will hold your account. This is the main decision in any cheap term life insurance policy. Not every company is created equal and not all benefits are the same. It is best to consider reputable insurance companies that have stood the test of time.

I know that the likelihood of saving a few dollars each month can be appealing but you really want to work with a reputable corporation that has a sound resume. Customer loyalty is a big indicator that you are dealing with the right organization for your cheap term life insurance policy.

Once you have picked a specific provider, you can begin working out the details of your life insurance policy. Cheap term life insurance comes in a few various forms and you can work one-on-one with a representative to help you decide which program is right for you.

The main reason that many of us look to cheap term life insurance is to save money. These temporary policies are designed to help individuals obtain adequate coverage for relatively little money. The life insurance policy has a definite start date as well as a defined ending as well.

Cheap term life insurance policies range from five year terms all the way to thirty year terms. There is sure to be an option that is ideal for your specific need in this wide range. Many people opt to adopt a cheap term life insurance policy while they are raising children for added coverage. These family-rearing policies are typically ten years in length.

Others want to implement a practical policy that will span the length of their adult lives. The thirty-year policy is perfect for people who want the additional protection for a significant amount of time. The duration of the cheap term life insurance policy depends on your specific situation.

Another thing to consider is the payout in the event of your death. The benefits vary and you can expect to pay more each month for larger settlements, of course. Those who are using the cheap term life insurance for added protection may want to consider a smaller benefit package.

I never understood the significance of having a South Carolina life insurance policy until my daughter came to live with me. When it was just me and my husband, the only life insurance policy I was concerned about was the one he had at his job. If something were to happen to him while he was on the job site, this policy would help me pay for his funeral expenses and maybe some of my bills. It was not something that would have made me rich, but it would have been all that I needed.

Hopefully we will never have to use his South Carolina life insurance policy. I can’t imagine that any sum of money would replace a spouse. However, it is imperative that everyone has a life insurance policy, especially if they have a young family. If something were to happen to one of the main breadwinners in the family, that family would certainly suffer for quite a while after that person’s death. The best you can hope for is that you pay on a life insurance policy for the rest of your life and don’t have to use it.

If you are unable to get a life insurance policy through your current employer, you should go out and find one on your own. If you visit any South Carolina insurance company, they will be able to tell you what is available to you, and you should be able to find something that you can afford. You may think that paying any amount money for a life insurance policy is a not worth it, but your family will not think so in the event that something happens to you. We all want to live forever, but the truth is that we won’t. And in some cases, life is much shorter than we ever anticipated.

Once you have a good life insurance policy, be sure you keep up-to-date with your payments. The last thing you want is to slip on a few payments and then have something happen where the policy is canceled. You never know what can happen any given moment, and if your policy happens to be canceled at the wrong time, you will have paid a lot of money for nothing. Buying a life insurance policy makes you to face things that you may not want to think about, but you have to put your own hesitation in fear aside and think of those you love.

A lot of Americans do not have health insurance, but even those who do have plans are looking for ways to save money by reducing or eliminating the amount of their deductibleI recently went to the doctor for a minor ailment.  Not having an office visit co-pay on my high deductible insurance plan, and not having yet met my annual $2,250 deductible, I had to pay the entire cost of the visit at the time of service.  I gave them a check for $82.50.  Two weeks later, I received a check in the mail for the same $82.50, essentially making my doctor’s office visit free of charge.  Sounds great, huh?  How did I accomplish this? 

You see, my employer has a Health Reimbursement Arrangement(HRA) in place.  First, he purchased a group high deductible health plan from a major insurance carrier in South Carolina.  Then, he also put in place a Health Reimbursement Arrangement, which allows him to reimburse his employees for 100% of their qualified out-of-pocket plan expenses, up to a set limit per year.  Most employers choose either $500 or $1,000 per employee for single coverage, and perhaps $2,000 or $2,500 for family type coverage. True, the employee must pay for the visits or prescription drugs at the time of service, but they get reimbursed 100% for those charges, up to the limit the employer has set. 

The employer is not required to prepay into a fund for the reimbursements.  He usually sets up a separate account and pays the reimbursements as each claim occurs.  The reimbursements are tax-deductible for the employer, and the reimbursements the employees receive are also tax free as long as they are tied to qualified health care expenses. At the employer’s discretion, if an employee does not use his/her entire HRA fund in a given year, the remainder can roll over into the next year’s fund.

With an HRA, you simply go to the doctor, hospital or pharmacy, and pay the estimated cost (sometimes, providers will even give you a discounted price knowing that you are on a high deductible plan and having to pay 100% upfront charges).  Then, the provider files the claim with your insurance company.  When you receive your EOB (Explanation of Benefits Form), you send it, along with a completed HRA Reimbursement Form to your health plan’s administrator for processing.  Usually within a week to 10 days, you will receive a check for 100% of the amount you spent at the provider, up to your annual HRA fund limit. 

It’s a win-win situation…..the employer wins because by installing the High Deductible Plan, he saves up to 40% in premium over traditional co-pay plans.  And, even when he also installs the HRA arrangement, it’s been shown that 70%-80% of all claims in a given group are submitted by just a few employees.  So a majority of his employees may not even use the HRA amount provided for them.  So he still realizes savings.  The employee benefits by receiving 100% paid medical care through the HRA arrangement (up to his/her annual limit).   Not a bad idea!

 Jennie Segurado

A lifelong insurance professional. Reach Jennie at:

    JennieSegurado@Insurance.sc 

People often get confused about the difference between Private Mortgage Insurance (called PMI by lenders) and Mortgage Life Insurance - some going as far as to call PMI lipstick on a pig. Hopefully we can shed some light on the differences and maybe even wipe away some of the lipstick to clear things up.  

PMI is a type of insurance that is usually required by lenders for you to buy when you are putting a down payment of less than 20% of the home’s value.  This form of insurance is not for your benefit – it’s for the protection of the lender, in the event that you default on your mortgage loan and the lender is not able to resell the home for enough money to pay off the mortgage amount.

Mortgage life insurance, on the other hand, is for your benefit, and is designed to protect yourself and your family by way of repaying your mortgage if you become disabled or die before the mortgage is paid off.  The choice is completely up to you as to whether or not you decide to purchase this type of coverage.  But the real question is, is it worth the money? 

I would say that, in most instances, mortgage life insurance is not worth purchasing and here’s why.

 If you were to die tomorrow, your surviving loved ones would need an insurance plan to help pay for many types of costs, not just to pay off the mortgage. Buying a comprehensive term, whole life, or universal life insurance plan would accomplish this nicely.  For this reason, it would almost always make better sense to sit down with an professional insurance agent and have him or her perform what’s called a “needs analysis”.  This in-depth look at your current and future expected financial needs helps to calculate the amount of life insurance you should purchase. 

What if you are uninsurable though?  If you are in poor health and would most likely pay either very high premiums, or get declined for coverage with a life insurance carrier, you may actually want to consider purchasing the Mortgage Life Insurance.  The reason is because most mortgage life insurance plans are mass-marketed through your lender or  an insurance company who partners with your lender.  The larger the pool of insured people, the lower the premiums, so your premium would likely be substantially less (and easier to qualify for coverage medically) than a regular life policy.

 But be sure to read the fine print before signing on the dotted line – it may (and probably does!) contain pre-existing limitations, exclusions or other restrictions that you need to be aware of.

In summary, in most cases, it’s best to purchase a quality term or permanent life insurance plan to cover all of your needs . . . not just your mortgage.

Dennis R Bailey is a lifelong Insurance Professional

Reach Dennis at:    DR_Bailey@Insurances.sc

Most of us know that with life insurance you have two basic choices.

You have a choice of a) basic term life, which is a pure death benefit only,

or b) permanent life insurance, which carries a cash-value account, similar to a savings account within the policy.  But that’s where the simplicity stops and the confusion begins. 

The important question you have to answer is which choice it is that works best for you. Let’s break it down a little;

*A fixed universal life insurance plan is one where the cash value your account earns is calculated using a certain percentage, based mostly on the consumer price index and profitability of the insurance carrier. 

*A second type is called a variable universal life insurance, where the policy owner gets to choose how the cash value is invested?

 A lot of people feel the returns they realize through standard universal or whole life policies aren’t high enough – they want more ‘bang for their buck’.  So how do they make their money work harder for them?  They choose a variable life policy and then do some shopping to choose the investments for the cash-value account of their policy.

But of course, like anything in life, you usually don’t get something for nothing.  There’s a price tag associated with obtaining higher returns on your money – and that price tag is named “risk”. 

Variable life is not for the faint of heart or for those who cannot tolerate risk.  They have to be in the “game” for the long term, because unlike standard universal life plans, the cash value obtained through a variable policy (with investments in stocks and bonds) can lose money.  These losses may be only for a short time, such as days or weeks . . . but can also last as long as months or years.  So, long term thinking and planning plays an important role when purchasing variable life.

Probably the safest way to prevent big losses in your cash value on a variable policy is to spread out, or diversify, your investments through several different accounts, known as sub-accounts.  The policy owner can choose from big company and small company stock, international stock, bond funds and the safer money-market funds.  The reasoning behind this strategy is that, if one sub-account begins dropping in value, maybe another sub-account will increase in value, evening out the playing field and helping to make up for the loss of the poorly performing sub-account.

  Another choice often available to the policy owner is to pull out all the money from the poorly performing account and switch it to another better performing account. This is done on a tax-free basis.

In summary, if you understand the risks involved with variable life, and have a bit of gambler in you, variable life is probably the best vehicle in which to invest your money to gain decent returns on a tax-free basis. A little more work, a little more gain.

The choice is yours.

Dennis R Bailey is a lifelong Insurance Professional

Reach Dennis at:    DR_Bailey@Insurances.sc

Yes, a new sc blog that is all about Life Insurance. Check back soon to read more about South Carolina Life Insurance.