The Insurancy Blog
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Category:Life Insurance109
Cash Value & Claims in Life Insurance
13 articles found
Life Insurance9 Ways Life Insurance Will Not Pay Out - Denied Claims
Life insurance almost always pays, but nine situations can void a payout: death during the two year suicide exclusion, withholding information on the application, dangerous activities, illegal activities, act of war clauses, living outside the United States, fraud, missing insurable interest, and lapses caused by policy replacement. Honest applications and premiums paid on time prevent nearly all of them.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jul 2026
Life InsuranceHow to Cancel a Life Insurance Policy - Rules and Costs
You can cancel a life insurance policy at any time by stopping payments or writing to the insurer. Term cancellations return little or nothing outside the free look window, while permanent policies pay the cash surrender value minus any surrender charge. Before canceling, compare alternatives like reducing coverage, using cash value to pay premiums, or selling the policy in a life settlement.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jul 2026
Life InsuranceHow Many Life Insurance Policies Can You Have?
You can own as many life insurance policies as you like, from one insurer or several. The practical cap is total coverage: underwriters justify your combined death benefit against income and financial obligations. Laddering multiple term policies is the most popular reason to hold several, letting coverage and premiums step down as debts get paid off.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jul 2026
Life InsuranceHow to Use Life Insurance While Alive - Living Benefits
Several kinds of life insurance pay benefits while you are alive. Permanent policies build cash value you can borrow against, withdraw, or surrender, and many policies offer living benefit riders that accelerate the death benefit after a serious diagnosis. The tradeoff: money used while living typically reduces what your beneficiaries receive.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jul 2026
Life InsuranceDoes Life Insurance Cover Funeral Costs? How It Works
Beneficiaries can absolutely use a life insurance payout for funeral costs, though nothing requires them to: the death benefit arrives as a lump sum spent at their discretion. If covering final costs is the whole goal, a small final expense (burial) policy is built for exactly that, with simplified underwriting and face amounts sized to funeral bills.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jul 2026
Life InsuranceDoes Life Insurance Cover Suicide? The 2 Year Clause
Most life insurance policies cover suicide once the suicide clause expires, typically two years after the policy is issued. If death occurs inside that exclusion window, the insurer usually refunds the premiums paid instead of paying the death benefit. Group life policies often carry no suicide clause at all, and replacing a policy restarts the clock.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jul 2026
Life InsuranceHow to Find Out if Someone Has Life Insurance - 6 Steps
Start with the free NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator, which asks participating insurers to search for policies in the deceased's name. From there, check personal papers and bank statements for premium payments, ask employers about group coverage, search state unclaimed property databases, and consider an MIB policy search for applications made after 1996.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jul 2026
Life InsuranceLife Insurance Dividends - How They Work and Your Options
Life insurance dividends are a share of a mutual insurer's favorable results paid to participating whole life policyholders. Dividends are not guaranteed, but carriers like MassMutual, Penn Mutual, Guardian, and Foresters have long track records of paying them. Policyholders choose among five uses: take cash, reduce premiums, leave them to accumulate at interest, repay policy loans, or buy paid-up additions that compound coverage and cash value.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jul 2026
Life InsuranceGraded Benefits vs Contestability - Key Differences
Graded death benefits and the contestability period both affect early claims but are different mechanisms. Graded benefits are a product feature of guaranteed issue policies: natural-cause payouts phase in over two to three years. Contestability is a legal window, typically the first two years of any policy, when the insurer can investigate claims and rescind coverage for material misrepresentation on the application.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jul 2026
Life InsuranceLife Insurance Waiting Periods - Graded Benefits Explained
Most fully underwritten life insurance has no waiting period: coverage is effective the day the policy is in force. Waiting periods belong to guaranteed issue and some simplified issue final expense policies, which phase in the death benefit over the first two to three years, typically refunding premiums plus interest if death occurs from natural causes during the graded window. Accidental deaths are usually covered in full from day one.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jul 2026
Life InsuranceCan You Borrow From a Life Insurance Policy? How Policy Loans Work
Permanent life insurance policies (whole life, universal life, indexed universal life, variable universal life) build cash value over time and most carriers let policyholders borrow against up to 90 percent of that accumulated cash value at the policys loan rate. Term life insurance has no cash value and cannot be borrowed against. This guide walks through how policy loans work, the loan rate (typically 4 to 8 percent), tax treatment, the 90 percent cap, and the most common policy-loan trap - what happens when the loan balance plus interest exceeds the cash value and the policy lapses.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jun 2026
Life InsuranceSell Your Life Insurance Policy Guide
A life settlement is a transaction in which a life insurance policyholder sells their policy to a third-party investor for a lump-sum cash payout that is more than the policy's cash surrender value but less than the death benefit. Life settlements are typically available to insureds age 65 and older with policies of $100,000 or more.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jun 2026
Life InsuranceLife Insurance Beneficiary Rules: A Complete Guide
A life insurance beneficiary designation overrides the will, which means a beneficiary form filled out 20 years ago can quietly redirect a $500,000 death benefit to an ex-spouse, a deceased family member, or even the estate (triggering probate). This guide walks through every rule that controls who gets paid: primary vs. contingent, per stirpes vs. per capita, the rules for naming minors and trusts, the community-property quirks in 9 states, and how to properly update a beneficiary after marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, or any major life change.
Brian Greenberg•Updated Jun 2026