Welcome to POLICYQUEST ®
a Simplis® Life Technology
POLICYQUEST ® is a free service. Its goal is to offer unbiased guidance to help you determine the type of life insurance that will deliver the protection and outcome you desire. Through POLICYQUEST ®, you can now find the best policy to deliver the best consumer experience for your situation.
How it Works
Answer all of the true/false and multiple-choice questions as accurately as possible. Based on your answers, Simplis® Life’s POLICYQUEST ® will determine which type of life insurance plan is best for you.
Types of Life Insurance
Term Life
A term is a pre-determined period of time. The death benefit for a term life policy is conditioned upon timely premium payments prior to the insured’s death. Term life is the least expensive form of life insurance to the budget. Most term life policies provide a temporary guaranteed level premium payment during the initial term, typically between 10 and 30 years after the policy is issued. After the initial term, the premium payment increases aggressively each year based upon the insured’s current age and unknown health status.
Term life is not designed to provide a death benefit; it is designed to provide peace of mind over a specified period of time. If a term life policy is in-force when the insured dies, the death benefit will be paid out to the beneficiaries. Nevertheless, term life is designed and priced around the assumption that the insured will outlive the policy, or the policy will lapse in some other way.
Whole Life
Whole Life is guaranteed to remain in-force over the entire lifetime of the insured, thus the name “Whole Life”. This policy type provides a guaranteed level premium and a guaranteed death benefit throughout the insured’s entire life. Whole Life provides the strongest guarantees to consumers. It is also the most expensive to the budget.
Whole life is designed and priced around the assumption that the death benefit will be paid. Over time, whole life builds a guaranteed cash-value which outperforms a savings account or certificate of deposit (Bank CD). The cash-value grows on a lifetime guaranteed schedule. If a premium payment is missed, the cash-value will be accessed to cover the cost of insurance so the policy will not lapse. Some whole life policies pay dividends to the policy owner.
Guaranteed Universal Life
Guaranteed universal life provides a conditional death benefit guarantee and a conditional level-premium payment guarantee. Both the death benefit guarantee and the level premium payment guarantee are conditioned upon timely premium payments.
Technically, guaranteed universal life is a cash-value policy, but it develops very little cash-value over time. This policy design helps to control premium cost, but it does not provide an effective financial safety net if premium payments are late or missed. Guaranteed universal life is particularly vulnerable during the policy’s later years.
The premium for guaranteed universal life will be more than term life, but less than whole life. It will provide a guaranteed death benefit for lifelong protection but at a more affordable price point. However, it is not very forgiving if premium payments are late or go unpaid.
Non-Guaranteed Universal Life
The non-guaranteed universal life design offers flexibility in both premium payments and death benefit. Premium payment flexibility means the policy owner may pay more or less premium than the amount initially agreed upon to issue the policy. Death benefit flexibility means the policy owner may reduce the death benefit in the future – subject to policy limits.
Non-guaranteed universal life might provide lifelong protection, but lifelong protection is not guaranteed. The premium payment required to support the death benefit might remain level over a lifetime, but a level premium payment is not guaranteed. Due to the flexible nature of the design, life insurance companies can neither guarantee the death benefit nor can they guarantee a level premium payment over an entire lifetime.
There are three general types of non-guaranteed universal life:
- Traditional
- Variable
- Indexed
All non-guaranteed universal life policies accumulate a cash-value. The cash-value of a non-guaranteed universal life policy is vulnerable to certain risks. The cash-value can increase or decrease over time based upon the performance of the underlying investment strategy associated with the policy, minus the cost of insurance charged to the policy.
If a premium payment is missed, the cash-value will be accessed to cover the cost of insurance so the policy will not lapse. However, with non-guaranteed universal life policies, even if every premium is paid on time — and in the amount initially agreed upon to issue the policy — under certain conditions, the policy may still lapse.