Your Guide To Survivorship Life Insurance

Survivorship Life Insurance is designed to help you protect your assets from the IRS in the inevitable event of your death. You may not think that you have enough assets to create an estate tax problem for your loved ones when you pass on, but the fact is that more people in the United States own a combination of property, wealth, and assets totaling over one million dollars, than ever before. Those who work hard and save their money deserve the option to make sure that as much of it as possible goes to their loved ones, rather than the IRS.

Estate Tax Basics:

There are ways to protect your assets under the current estate tax laws, but once your estate exceeds the exclusion amount, your heirs run the risk of loosing part of your estate. This is why Survivorship Life Insurance is so important, because it insures both you ad your spouse under one policy, with the proceeds payable to specified beneficiaries after the second death. As an estate planning tool, Survivorship Life Insurance offers the following benefits:

Price: Because there are two lives insured under one policy, the premiums are generally lower than those for two individual, single life policies

Increased planning ease: Wit this one arrangement, you can also establish an irrevocable life insurance trust to purchase your Survivorship Life Insurance policy, and designating your heirs as beneficiaries. Doing so will keep the proceeds from this insurance out of your estate for tax purposes. Through a will, your estate assets can then pass to your surviving spouse upon your death, and the insurance benefit with the policy proceeds going directly to your designated beneficiaries, will be paid upon the death of your spouse. Your beneficiaries can then use the policy money to replace any assets that have been lost to taxes.

More Liberal Underwriting: Since two lives are insured, with a benefit paid at the death of a second, someone who may have been denied single insurance coverage may be approved for survivorship life insurance, although this is dependant on several factors that will vary by both state and policy issuer.

Additional Benefits of Survivorship Life Insurance

Survivorship Life Insurance is also commonly used to benefit many types of organizations and people including:

Charitable Gifts: With Survivorship Life Insurance coverage, you can create a living legacy for a charitable organization

Children with special needs: This type of insurance can also provide guaranteed funding for a trust to provide for a child with disabilities after the death both parents.

You’ve worked hard to build up your financial capital, and you deserve to retain as much control over it as possible. Purchasing Survivorship Life Insurance may be the way to ensure that you, and your spouse, are able to just that.