Life insurance (or assurance) is and agreement between an insurance providing company and the individual that takes out a policy with them. The agreement is based idea that for a recurring fee, the insurance company will payout an agreed sum to the beneficiaries of the insured (most of the time this will be family) upon the insureds death.
In some countries it is normal to have funeral expenses covered in a insurance policy, but in the UK, companies tend to simply pay out a lump sum to the beneficiaries of the insured upon his/her demise.
A life insurance policy will contain contract terms and these terms will include death circumstances for which the insured will not be covered, and the ones for which they will be. Death circumstances that will generally not be covered by life insurance are suicide, riot or war.
Life based contracts will usually fall into two different categories, protection policies and investment policies. Protection policies are those that provide a benefit to those parties specified in the contract, usually a lump sum, in the event of a specified scenario. Investment policies are where the main objective is to facilitate the growth of capital by regular or single premiums. Common forms (in the US anyway) are whole life, universal life and variable life policies.
The beneficiary is the person(s) who will receive the payout upon the death of the insured person and can be changed at any time by the policy holder unless the beneficiary is irrevocable in which case the policy holder must have express permission from the beneficiary in order to make any changes regarding the beneficiary.
The policy holder and the insured are not necessarily the same person (although they usually are) but someone can take out a policy to cover someone else's life, for example, a wife could take out a policy on her husbands life, making her the policy holder and him the insured.
In these scenarios, insurance companies want to limit the people who can take out a policy another persons life to only the people who would suffer a genuine loss, emotional or otherwise, if the insured was to die. This is to stop people taking out policies on other peoples lives because this person is on the point of death but its not obvious, and to stop providing a motive to murder. People may consider taking out an insurance policy on someone who is worth a lot of money with themselves as the beneficiary and then proceed to kill that person for the cash reward. Granted this is extreme and a rarity but it had been known to happen before insurance companies clamped down.
Life insurance, like most other types of insurance is basically an agreement between the insurance provider and the insured that for a recurring fee, the aforementioned beneficiary/beneficiaries of the policy will receive the proceeds of the contract (usually a lump sum) upon the occurrence of one of the terms of the contract, in the case of life insurance, this will usually be the insureds death.
In some countries it is normal to have funeral expenses covered in a insurance policy, but in the UK, companies tend to simply pay out a lump sum to the beneficiaries of the insured upon his/her demise.
A life insurance policy will contain contract terms and these terms will include death circumstances for which the insured will not be covered, and the ones for which they will be. Death circumstances that will generally not be covered by life insurance are suicide, riot or war.
Life based contracts will usually fall into two different categories, protection policies and investment policies. Protection policies are those that provide a benefit to those parties specified in the contract, usually a lump sum, in the event of a specified scenario. Investment policies are where the main objective is to facilitate the growth of capital by regular or single premiums. Common forms (in the US anyway) are whole life, universal life and variable life policies.
The beneficiary is the person(s) who will receive the payout upon the death of the insured person and can be changed at any time by the policy holder unless the beneficiary is irrevocable in which case the policy holder must have express permission from the beneficiary in order to make any changes regarding the beneficiary.
The policy holder and the insured are not necessarily the same person (although they usually are) but someone can take out a policy to cover someone else's life, for example, a wife could take out a policy on her husbands life, making her the policy holder and him the insured.
In these scenarios, insurance companies want to limit the people who can take out a policy another persons life to only the people who would suffer a genuine loss, emotional or otherwise, if the insured was to die. This is to stop people taking out policies on other peoples lives because this person is on the point of death but its not obvious, and to stop providing a motive to murder. People may consider taking out an insurance policy on someone who is worth a lot of money with themselves as the beneficiary and then proceed to kill that person for the cash reward. Granted this is extreme and a rarity but it had been known to happen before insurance companies clamped down.
Life insurance, like most other types of insurance is basically an agreement between the insurance provider and the insured that for a recurring fee, the aforementioned beneficiary/beneficiaries of the policy will receive the proceeds of the contract (usually a lump sum) upon the occurrence of one of the terms of the contract, in the case of life insurance, this will usually be the insureds death.
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