Life Insurance

Life Insurance:

Life Insurance Provides a monetary benefit to a decedent's family or other beneficiary and may specifically provide for income to an insured persons family, burial, funeral and other final expenses. Life Insurance Policies often allow the option of having the proceeds paid to the beneficiary either in a lump sum cash payment or an annuity. 

Annuities provide a stream of payments and are generally classified as insurance because they are issued by insurance companies are regulated as insurance and require the same kinds of actuarial     and investments management expertise that Life Insurance requires. Annuities and pensions that pay a benefit for life are some times regarded as insurance against the possibility that a retiree will outlive  his or her financial resources. In that sense they are the compliment of Life Insurance and from an underwriting perspective are the mirror image of life insurance.

Certain Life Insurance contracts accumulate cash values which may be taken by the insured if the policy is surrendered  or which may be borrowed against. Some policies such as annuities and endowment policies are financial instruments to accumulate or liquidate wealth when it is needed.