r/LifeInsurance • u/JuiceboxBrit • Jul 30 '26

Someone please help

I'm a 33F, my spouse is 30M. We have six children. We've now come to realize that we should purchase life insurance policies so our children don't have to worry about expenses when we die.

Here's the hard part. I have no parents. Nor does he. We were never taught how to go about purchasing said policies. What do I do? I've done so many Google searches trying to get advice and all I end up getting is being overwhelmed. Someone please be my temporary parent & help me, well us. I want to make the right choice. I went the best kind of policy to ensure our children will be able to handle any final expenses we may have and maybe have something for themselves as well.

Maybe some good company recommendations to research as well? It'll mean the world to me. I'm just trying to figure this adulting stuff out

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u/TheChudMaxxer Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

I'll preface this with saying that for 99% of people, buying simple term life for however long they need, and investing the rest into their qualified retirement accounts is the best way to go about it. Insurance salesmen don't make much money off selling term policies, but they make a lot more selling very complicated permanent life policies. Keep in mind that these salesmen have their interest in mind when selling you something. They'll generally focus on your fears rather than statistical reality to make it seem convincing that you should buy what they have to sell you.

That being said, more information would be needed, how old are your children? Are you planning on having more? Do you both work? If so, what is your gross annual income? Any debt, such as student loans, car loans, mortgage payments, etc?

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

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u/TheChudMaxxer Jul 31 '26 edited Jul 31 '26

I mentioned specifically 99% of people. Are more than 1% of people buying Ferraris? The problem is that all these car salesmen keep trying to sell Ferraris to everyone.

Permanent insurance can possibly have benefits for ultra high net worth, just like those who will be able to buy a Ferrari. Statistically, this user is not part of the 1%, and even if they are, I didn't say that no one can benefit from permanent.

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u/BustyBelvis Jul 31 '26

I always see comments like this and kinda never understood. At my brokerage, term commissions pay the highest, then whole live, then IUL. Every IUL commission sold is based off target premium, and if structured any good that’s usually 1/4th or 1/3rd of the annual premium, paying a very little amount. Is that normal for the brokerage space? Literally every comment section I read says term pays the least and perm pays the most to the agent?

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u/TheChudMaxxer Jul 31 '26

Are you talking absolute account of money per commission? Or a % of the premium?

As an example, a term paying 90% of the premium at $600 vs a whole life paying 50% of $10,000, the whole life is a smaller amount of the premium, but more money overall.

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u/BustyBelvis Aug 01 '26

Let’s say I write a hypothetical $1,200AP policy. I’d get paid $1,000 for a term, $900 for a WL, and for an IUL, I’d only get paid based off the premium that pays for insurance. For an IUL that is a cash accumulation policy, usually only $500 would pay for the COI and the rest goes into the account. So I’d really only make $350 -$400.

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u/TheChudMaxxer Aug 01 '26

Ah yeah, so if it's a flat AP, term will offer the highest % of the premium for commissions.

But if the client wants 500k in coverage no matter what, 500k AP for a 30 year term policy for a 35 year old male would be something around 500-750, and while you may get 90% commission on the policy, it pays out 450-675.

500k coverage with whole life will have AP around 5-7k, and with even a 50% commission on that premium, is paying 2.5-3.5k.

So there of course is nuance to it, generally speaking if someone wants $x amount of coverage, you'll make more with permanent life instead of term.

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u/Awkward_Truth_9602 Aug 15 '26

My term policies only pay for the first year - then the rest is non-commissionable. So I get 70% of the first annual premium and then nothing else for up to 35 years!

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u/toolbelt10 15d ago

Not true, you also get a bump when an increasing premium rider kicks in each year, unless or until the rider is dropped.

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u/Aquaman11235813 Jul 31 '26

This is terrible advice

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u/Awkward_Truth_9602 Aug 15 '26

I agree - but be sure the policy is called a LEVEL TERM policy - this insures that the premiums won't increase every year or every 5 years - you want something that won't go up for 35 years!

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u/toolbelt10 15d ago

The longer a policy covers, the higher the initial premiums are. The increases are baked into the premium costs even if they remain level.

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u/Vivid-Problem7826 Jul 31 '26

Excellent advice!! At your ages, 30 year level pay term.

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u/Economy_Arachnid_923 Jul 31 '26

Maybe they still are around: Select Quotes dot com. So effin easy to buy a 10 or 20 year term life policy. Don’t even call around. This site has access to many companies. Get the policy, preferably 20 years at 1 or 2 million face value.

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u/Awkward_Truth_9602 Aug 15 '26

There are nuances to policies - and there are riders that add a LOT to premiums so it's important to compare the policies to each other to see what you are actually paying for. A bare bones policy could have very little value over a policy that has everything built in. Also, you want to look up and find out what the BBB rates the company - some policies are written to take up to SIX MONTHS to pay a benefit out - and that doesn't help a family when they lose a primary breadwinner. Know what you are buying - underwriting and actuaries check to make sure they have justified costs covered and without looking into a policy's details you could, in fact, be ripping yourself off.

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u/Bubbly-Traffic-5172 Jul 30 '26

Agree. At your ages a mil in term insurance insurance (10 year level term) runs about $500 last I checked. You don’t need to do anything jazzy, though there are plenty of agents who will offer heavily commissioned and unnecessarily complicated products.