With younger Canadians being burdened by increased long-term debt thanks to student loans, (The Globe and Mail reports that federal student loan debt is more than $15 billion) many in their 20s or 30s want a life insurance policy that extends beyond the traditional 20 years.
Typically, a term 20 policy gets extremely expensive beyond the 20th year with the renewals increasing by as much as 900%.
Manulife Financial has introduced a product to help capitalize and fill this need. Their plan gives insurance protection until age 65 with the premium that is guaranteed to never increase. The coverage is also convertible should the insured need to switch to a permanent plan.
Sun Life also offers a term to 65 policy available to applicants age 18 to 50. The minimum face amount on the plan is $25,000 and the maximum amount is based on Sun Life’s retention limits. They also have a non-convertible plan, which is available for group conversions.
Primerica, which uses its own in-house captive salesforce, is another provider of term to 65 insurance.
The challenge with term to 65 insurances is, only a few carriers offer the coverage. Generally, speaking this results in higher premiums to the consumer, but, thankfully, Manulife Financial’s plan compares favourably. For example, a 45-year-old, non-smoking male looking for $500,000 in coverage can get term to 65 with Manulife Financial at $89.83 a month. Similarly, $500,000 in term 20 coverage for the same 45-year-old, male non-smoker from RBC Insurance is $89.01 a month.
On the other hand, some younger Canadians may like the flexibility of Industrial Alliance‘s Pick-a-Term policy, since the plan is available in terms of 10 years to 40 years. The applicant can pick the term that best suits their needs. They can even create multiple term policies within one plan. For example, coverages can be a hybrid that’s part term 40, part term 25 and term 10. This allows the insured to customize their plan to their specific needs.
For more information on term insurance, visit our Term Insurance Instant Quote Page, or call us at 1-866-899-4849.
The term to 65 fills a definite need. I think more insurers will go the way of Industrial Alliance’s pick a term type of program where you can choose multiple terms and create your own hybrid of term life insurance policy to meet your varying needs throughout your life. This way you may not have to buy multiple life insurance policies.
You make some good points this also save on policy fees.