Fantastic Life Insurance for a 58 Year Old (Tips & Pricing)
Posted in Life Insurance in Your 50s last updated on April 30, 2021Finding life insurance for a 58 year old can be terrible, especially since medical concerns seem to crop up as time goes on. There are a handful of tricks to saving money on the policy that will best fit your family.
To see what your rates might be right now, use the Instant Quotes tool on your left. (Top if you’re on mobile.) You will get a comparison of rates from the top-rated life insurance companies in the nation.
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Saving Money on Life Insurance for a 58 Year Old
After helping hundreds of clients find the best policies for themselves and their families, these are the tricks we’ve found that work for just about everyone looking for life insurance, no matter what age.
Use a Life Insurance Needs Calculator
Ask five people how much life insurance you should get, and you will get at least four different answers. In the old days, agents used a general rule that was 5 to 7 times your income. Although this started to vary and you still hear some people recommend as low as 3x or as high as 20x.
After all, it’s tedious to sit down and calculate all of your known expenses over the next couple decades. But with new tools available like a life insurance needs calculator, it’s easy to see what you need.
By using a tool that calculates all this for you, you know that you will never be oversold by someone trying to make a buck.
Speak with an Independent Agent
Independent agents work for their clients (you) and not the insurance company. They can look at the rates of dozens of different companies and help you find the product that is the best fit for your family and saves the most money.
They have the experience to know which companies work better with pre-existing medical conditions and which to avoid.
There is another type of life insurance agent, the captive agent. They usually have a company name prominently displayed over their office and can only sell you products from that company.
Captive agents can only sell from one company. That means you can choose from several products, but you are stuck with their health class.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Every once in a while that company might be the best for your unique situation. But they can’t shop the market for you. The underwriting guidelines of their company may not favor your occupation, or hobbies, or medical history.
So regardless of what sort of agent you end up working with, having an independent agent shop the market for you can save you both time and money.
Layer Smaller Policies Instead of Purchasing One Broad Policy
Some folks need life insurance for more than one reason. A mother may need a policy that will pay off the mortgage on the house and cover her child’s college tuition if she isn’t there to take care of both. A husband looking forward to a pension may want life insurance to provide for his wife if he passes first as well as cover his burial expenses.
The most effective way to go about situations like these is to layer policies instead of purchasing one large one.
Layering policies is getting a life insurance policy tailored to each reason you are looking for the insurance in the first place. It saves you money because you don’t need a more substantial amount for a longer time to cover both reasons.
If we take the man from the example in the first paragraph, he could find a policy that pays out in installments rather than a lump sum. (Those are usually less expensive.) That will cover his wife’s living expenses if he dies first. He could also take out a small whole life policy that will cover the expected costs of his memorial service, headstone, and final medical expenses or bills.
Building a study wall with blocks is easier (and cheaper) than carving it out of one big one. Life insurance policies work the same way.
If you have more than one reason for looking into life insurance, consider layering your policies to save yourself some money.
Term Will Save You Money, but Might Not be Best for You
Term life insurance is cheaper than permanent life insurance. With a permanent policy, the life insurance company knows they will have to pay a claim at some point. They just don’t know when. With a term policy, they may not have to pay the claim at all if the covered person lives beyond the term.
Naturally, term is more of a gamble for both you and the insurance company. But the statistical likelihood that you may live life beyond the term means the companies charge significantly less for it.
Now, this isn’t to say that term life insurance is better for everyone. There are perks to permanent life insurance too, but it just depends on what your family’s situation is.
Choosing the Right Type of Term Insurance Helps
Term life insurance is the cheaper of the two types of options, but within the umbrella of term insurance, there are different types of term life insurance designed to serve different needs.
For example, if you’re looking for life insurance to pay off the mortgage on your house in case something happens, you might look into decreasing term life insurance. Decreasing term means that both the death benefit (what the family gets when the insured person dies) and the premiums (what you pay each month/year) get lower over the term. Your mortgage gets smaller over time, so you need less money to pay it off.
A decreasing term to cover the mortgage on your house will save you money over one broad policy that covers your mortgage at the time you take it out. Why pay for something you won’t need all of 5 years down the line?
Term Life Insurance for a 58 Year Old Male
The rates in the table below reflect a decently healthy man who doesn’t smoke. They are what someone might pay each month.
| Male Rates | $100,000 | $250,000 | $500,000 | $1,000,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
10 Year Term | $29 | $60 | $109 | $204 |
20 Year Term | $52 | $103 | $195 | $373 |
30 Year Term | $101 | $247 | $476 | $906 |
Term Life Insurance for a 58 Year Old Female
Below you can find possible rates for a reasonably healthy woman who doesn’t smoke. Again, they’re monthly. Some insurance companies will offer slight discounts for paying yearly.
| Female Rates | $100,000 | $250,000 | $500,000 | $1,000,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
10 Year Term | $23 | $43 | $80 | $149 |
20 Year Term | $36 | $74 | $136 | $262 |
30 Year Term | $94 | $195 | $376 | $810 |
Permanent Life Insurance in Your Late 50s
Permanent life insurance has some extra perks that term life insurance does not. More bells and whistles make it more expensive, but that isn’t always a bad thing.
One of the most appreciated (and most used) features of permanent life insurance is the cash value accumulation feature. This is the thing people talk about when you hear couples talk about using some part of their life insurance contract to fund their yearly cruise.
A cash value accumulation builds up over the life of the contract. This is the amount of money you are allowed to borrow from the life insurance company. They hold that amount of your death benefit as collateral until you pay it back. It’s a no questions asked loan. No bank approval processes needed.
It’s a little more complicated than term insurance so if you think it might be for you make sure to discuss your options with your insurance agent.
No-exam Life Insurance at 58
The medical exam is one of the most irritating parts of the life insurance process. It’s just something else you have to find time for in your day. Life insurance companies recognize this and try to make it easy for you by offering to meet you at your home, place of work, or even setting up an appointment with a medical examiner to make sure that they can make the medical exam as convenient as possible.
Taking the medical exam can make your life insurance cheaper. But if you can’t handle needles, there are affordable options.
On the other side of that many companies are starting to offer policies that do not require medical exams at more reasonable rates.
In the old days, policies which did not require medical exam (no exam policies) were markedly more expensive than their more traditional life insurance counterparts. More people wanting to skip the exam has led to more companies offering no exam products. In turn, this has led to increased competition and lower rates for consumers.
The benefits of this sort of policy are lower than what you can get from traditional life insurance. Although there are a couple of companies, which offer much higher benefits on their no exam policy.
How Abrams Insurance Solutions Can Help
At Abrams, we are independent agents which means we work for you and not the insurance company. We work with the top 70 companies operating in the United States to make sure that we can find you the best deal.
If a company comes back with an offer we think is unfair to you, we won’t rest until we have found a better deal for you.
Give us a call today at 858-703-6178 to see how we can save you time and money. You can also see rates right now for free by using the Instant Quote tool on the left. (Top if you’re on mobile.) And there is never any obligation to buy.
You can check insurance rates by age or see what your rates might look like if you wait and buy life insurance at age 59.
The Bottom Line
We believe that as little of your hard-earned paycheck as possible should go toward insurance. While it’s essential to have a strong financial foundation for your family, it’s also important to use your income wisely to prepare for the future and enjoy today.
