Life Insurance Loans: Understanding Details of Life Insurance Loans

The unpredictable nature of life gives rise to financial emergencies where we require immediate cash. In such crisis situations all you need is financial aid or a loan. But, do you know that you can avail loan against life insurance policy?

Financial crisis never comes with prior announcement and so most of the times we are unaware and unprepared for such situations. Often, we feel helpless when a sudden and immediate monetary need comes up in our life. Sometimes, the situation may be very critical, which prompts you to opt for an immediate loan from a financial institution. This is especially the case when you must clear a bill or something important within a brief time period. There are many financial institutions paying loans but they charge exorbitantly. So, what is the way out? In such a situation, you can avail a loan against the life insurance policy that you have purchased to secure your family.

There are some key benefits of availing a loan under your life insurance plan as compared to getting it from the regular financial institutions. If you want to get a loan from your term life insurance policy, you must read all the details here.

How Much Loan Can You Get under Your Life Insurance policy??

Can I take a loan on my life insurance and how much? – this is a question that most people would like to know. The amount received under the loan on life insurance policy depends on the accumulated amount of your fund. As and when the fund amount increases in any life insurance plan (whole or term insurance), it allows the insured to avail loans against the total amount.  In case of loans offered under your life insurance policy, the amount that you receive is tax – free.

However, in this case the insurer cannot promise as to how much the fund value increases under your life term insurance policy and how fast. Hence, you are unaware or you cannot predict the availability of loan under your insurance. Besides, different insurers have different criteria in terms of how much fund amount is required to be able to get a loan under your insurance plan and how much fund can be availed as loan amount.

Also, you must remember that the loan that you avail does not subtract cash from your total policy fund. You just borrow from your insurer and use the life insurance policy fund value as security.

How to take a loan from life insurance and How Much of Loan Amount Do You Need to Repay?

The best thing or best feature of getting loans from life insurance policies is that the policyholder does not require to return it. And this is a feature that serves the purpose of many people, especially during crisis situations.

Even if you want to repay a portion of the loan or the entire amount of loan, you can choose to repay in the form of periodic principal repays taking into consideration your yearly contribution of interest. So, you may simply pay yearly interest or deduct the interest from your entire sum.

As such, there is an element of interest involved in life insurance loans similar to all kinds of loans. Depending on the insurer, the interest can either be fixed or variable. It is better to repay a loan if you are capable because in case you do not repay the complete loan amount before death, the insurer might lower face value on your policy while paying the death benefit later on at the time of settling the claim. This might lower the accumulating interest to a significant level and lower the benefit amount as well.

When to Choose a Life Insurance Loan?

You can choose a life insurance loan under several scenarios such as:

For fulfilling immediate fund requirements

Borrowers who look for quick personal loans against life insurance have a common concern and that is regarding the time needed to get the fund in your hand. Most of the financial institutions that you seek for a loan will take time to check your application and would also need a collateral to act as security against your loan. Further, it generally takes a few days for the fund to finally reach you.  On the contrary, with life insurance you can get loans readily and quickly to fulfil your immediate cash requirement.

If Your insurance Policy is About to Lapse

If you are in a situation where you couldn’t pay the premiums of your term insurance plan. In such a case, you may procure a loan on the cash value of life insurance from your policy and that way it will stay active as long as your loan amount is less than the death benefit amount.

If You want to Avoid Higher Rate of Interests

f you go for the regular traditional loans, you are sure to pay a high rate of interest. So, to avoid such high rates, you may seek a loan on your policy. Further, there is no particular duration of loan repayment and you can get competitive rates of interest on life insurance loans.