Review the life insurance you already have.
Plain-English guides to keeping a life insurance policy on track: annual checkups, reading statements, updating coverage and beneficiaries as life changes, and replacing, selling or surrendering a policy with care. Every guide links to its sources.
Articles
18 articles
Annual Life Insurance Review: A Yearly Checkup for Your Policy
A step-by-step yearly routine for checking an existing life insurance policy: documents to gather, details to confirm, warning signs and when to get help.
Read · 6 min read →Reviewing Your PolicyYour Annual Life Insurance Statement: What Each Line Tells You
How to read the yearly report on a whole life, universal life or variable life policy, which figures matter most, and which notices mean you should act.
Read · 6 min read →Reviewing Your PolicyIn-Force Illustrations: How to Request and Read One
What an in-force illustration is, how to ask your insurer for one, how to read guaranteed and non-guaranteed columns, and what questions to bring to the insurer.
Read · 6 min read →Reviewing Your PolicyUniversal Life Lapse Risk: Warning Signs in Your Policy
Why universal life policies can run out of money, the warning signs on your statements, how no-lapse guarantees and grace periods work, and what you can do.
Read · 6 min read →Reviewing Your PolicyRising Premiums on an Older Policy: Your Options Explained
Why premiums or charges can rise on term, universal and current assumption life policies, how to find out what changed, and the choices most owners have.
Read · 6 min read →Reviewing Your PolicyBeneficiary and Contact Details: Keeping Your Policy Current
Why outdated beneficiary designations and contact details can undermine a life insurance policy, what to check each year, and how to update them safely.
Read · 5 min read →Life Changes & UpdatesLife Insurance After Marriage: What to Review and Update
A newlywed's checklist for life insurance: reassess needs for both spouses, update every beneficiary form, and use workplace deadlines and policy riders.
Read · 6 min read →Life Changes & UpdatesLife Insurance After Divorce: Beneficiaries, Owners and Orders
How to review life insurance during and after a divorce, from beneficiary forms and policy ownership to court-ordered coverage and children as beneficiaries.
Read · 6 min read →Life Changes & UpdatesNew Baby or Adoption: How to Update Your Life Insurance
What new parents should review after a birth or adoption: sizing the new need, insuring both parents, naming beneficiaries for a minor and child riders.
Read · 6 min read →Life Changes & UpdatesApproaching Retirement: Keep, Reduce or Drop Your Life Insurance?
How to decide what to do with life insurance as retirement nears, including workplace coverage, pension survivor choices, surrender costs and sales pressure.
Read · 6 min read →Life Changes & UpdatesConverting Term Life to Permanent: How the Option Works
How a term policy's conversion option works, why the deadline matters, what it costs, and the questions to ask your insurer before you convert.
Read · 5 min read →Life Changes & UpdatesWhen Your Term Policy Is Ending: Your Options, Step by Step
Your term life policy is nearing its end date. Here's how to compare letting it end, renewing, converting or applying for new coverage.
Read · 5 min read →Replace, Sell or SurrenderReplacing a Life Insurance Policy: The Rules and Questions to Ask
How state replacement rules based on the NAIC model work, what agents and insurers must give you, and the questions to answer before swapping policies.
Read · 6 min read →Replace, Sell or Surrender1035 Exchanges: How Tax-Free Policy Swaps Work and Their Limits
What Section 1035 allows, which swaps don't qualify, when cash or a loan makes part of an exchange taxable, and why tax-free doesn't mean a good deal.
Read · 6 min read →Replace, Sell or SurrenderLife Settlements: How Selling a Policy Works and What to Watch For
How selling a life insurance policy to a third party works, how offers are priced, the costs and state rules involved, and the scams regulators warn about.
Read · 6 min read →Replace, Sell or SurrenderSurrendering a Policy: Cash Value, Surrender Charges and Taxes
What you actually receive when you cash in a policy, how surrender charges and loans reduce it, how the IRS taxes the gain, and what to check first.
Read · 6 min read →Replace, Sell or SurrenderStopping Premiums: Lapse, Reduced Paid-Up or Extended Term
Grace periods, nonforfeiture options and reinstatement explained, so stopping premiums on a cash value policy is a deliberate choice rather than a lost value.
Read · 6 min read →Replace, Sell or SurrenderPolicy Loans: How Borrowing Against Cash Value Works and the Risks
How life insurance policy loans work, what they do to the death benefit, how they raise lapse risk, and when a loan can turn into a tax bill.
Read · 5 min read →Policy Review A–Z
54 Policy review terms explained in a sentence or three, from 1035 exchange to surrender value.