Whole life insurance policies are very similar to term insurance plans. This is a term plan with an unlimited term. As the name suggests, a whole life policy is an insurance cover against death, where the sum assured is payable only on death, whenever it may occur.
Under this plan, the policyholder pays regular premiums until his death (till a claim arises), following which the payment is made to the nominee or the claimant. Although, in the case of Whole Life policies, the sum assured is payable only on death, many insurance companies pay the sum assured, when the life insured reaches a particular age. Earlier a lot of insurance companies used to make this payment at the age of 100 years and recently many have dropped it down to 75 years.
Premium is usually paid till the sum assures becomes payable but many insurers provide an option to pay premiums for a limited period. Such policies would be called as Limited payment policies. People who are skeptical of the consistency of their earnings and expect it to discontinue or drop substantially over a period of time may prefer limited payment policies. This is often the case with professionals like sports personalities, skilled artists and armed forces personnel. Many a times, a person has or receives a lump sum amount from somewhere and is not sure whether he will be able to pay the same amount every year. For such customers, there is an option to pay the premium only once. Such a policy where the premium is payable only for one year at the beginning of the policy is called as a single premium policy.
The premium for a whole life insurance policy would surely be higher than a pure term insurance plan and unlike a term plan where the cover is for a specific period, a whole life insurance policy doesn’t attach a policy term and is valid till the death of the policy holder, whenever it may occur.
Whole Life Insurance Plans from different Insurance Companies
- Bharti AXA Life Elite Secure
- Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Stay Smart Plan
- HDFC Single Premium Whole of Life Insurance Plan
- Kotak Eternal Life Plans
- LIC - The Whole Life Policy
- LIC - The Whole Life Policy- Limited Payment
- LIC - The Whole Life Policy- Single Premium
- LIC - Jeevan Tarang
- Max New York Whole Life Participating
- Met 100
- Reliance Whole Life Plan
- Tata AIG Life MahaLife Gold
