Group life insurance in Virginia is a common workplace benefit. Since it is cheap, why not take it? But you need to look at what you are actually getting.
In a lot of situations, the amount of group life insurance that you get corresponds to your salary. The percentage is usually one to two times your salary. This level of coverage is insufficient to cover a family in the event of the main breadwinner passing. The rule of thumb in the life insurance industry is that you need 70% of your net income after taxes, to recover from the loss of income. The family may even need more if there is still debt and especially if any member of the family has health issues as well.
With the change or loss of your employment, your group life insurance policy will be gone. If, in between jobs, you should develop a health issue, getting a new policy could be difficult with your new employer.
No. In order to properly prepare your financial future, it will benefit you to have your own life insurance policy. Then the life insurance policy can be added to the coverage from your employer to give you a decent amount of coverage.
One of the reasons this policy works for your employer is because it can reduce employee sick leave by providing rapid medical attention. This ensures speedy recovery from illnesses and lets you, the employee, focus more on his or her job.
The main benefit is the money saved by not taking a private life insurance plan to cover all the benefits. The savings aspect is doubled when you receive the group life insurance plan free or at a discounted rate.
It is permanent as long as the company is in business. But if you leave, are fired or the business shuts down, you only have 30 days to convert to a whole life policy which is much more expensive. And that’s another reason to have your own cheap life insurance policy.
Although group life insurance policies vary , there are some basic coverages they provide including:
-Group Life Insurance
-Group Health Insurance
-Group Disability Insurance
-Group Critical Illness Insurance
It is advisable to read your group life insurance policy thoroughly to understand what other coverage may be included.
The biggest alternative to group life insurance is to have your own life insurance policies. When you are insured through group life insurance in Virginia the policy is not owned by you completely. When you change jobs you will have to re-qualify for your group life insurance and possibly face higher premiums. Therefore, it is a good idea to have your own term life and disability insurance policy; however since it is free or low cost, it never hurts to participate in group life insurance.
If you’ve been stalling buying your life insurance, contact a Virginia life insurance agent who can collect information from any number of companies. He will gather basic information from you in terms of your age, sex, health and recommend a medical so you can get a cheaper premium from a carrier. The sooner you do this the cheaper the premiums will be, for your life insurance. Overall, you can have control of your policy, which you don’t have with group life insurance.
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