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6 Reasons to Buy Whole Life Insurance or Term Life Insurance
Securing quality term or whole life insurance coverage is
important, especially if there are people in your life
whose financial stability depends on your income. Many
financial experts even consider life insurance to be the
foundation of sound financial planning. Find out six
reasons why you should purchase whole life insurance or
term life insurance to protect your family and loved ones.

1. Income for Dependents
If people in your life depend on your income for financial
support, having a whole life insurance or term life
insurance policy in place will protect them in the event of
your death. Life insurance can replace your income for your
dependents so they aren’t left bearing the financial burden
of an income lost through death. This applies most often to
parents with young children, but is also applicable to
couples if the death of one partner would leave the
survivor financially stricken. If your parents, adult
children, or siblings are your dependents, life insurance
can also provide replacement income to benefit them. And,
if your surviving spouse or domestic partner’s government
or employer-sponsored benefits will see a reduction after
your death, having life insurance to replace your income
can definitely be useful.

2. Coverage for Final Expenses
Funeral and burial costs can be expensive, but your life
insurance can cover the costs. Carefully planned life
insurance will also provide funds to cover mortgages and
other expenses. Debts and medical expenses not covered by
health insurance can also be covered by your life
insurance. Life insurance offers protection to the
dependents you leave behind, since it can sometimes be
utilized as a cash resource.

3. Create Inheritance
Life insurance can allow you to create an inheritance for
your immediate relatives or heirs. Even if you don’t have
any other significant assets to pass onto your surviving
family or loved ones, you can create an inheritance by
naming your heirs as beneficiaries in your life insurance
policy.

4. Pay Estate Taxes
Rather than leaving your surviving family to take a smaller
inheritance or do away with some assets, have a quality
life insurance policy in place so the benefits can pay
estate taxes. Some life insurance plans provide tax free
cash that can be used to pay estate taxes and death duties.

5. Create Source of Savings
Your life insurance can become a sort of savings plan since
some types of insurance can create a cash value that is
available for withdrawal upon the owner’s request. Another
benefit of this “forced” savings plan is that the interest
credited is tax deferred, and if the money is paid as a
death claim, the interest can be tax exempt (www.iii.org).

6. Make Charitable Contribution
By naming a charity as a beneficiary of your life
insurance, you can make a larger contribution than if you
donated the cash equivalent of your policy’s premiums.
Donating a term life insurance policy allows you to deduct
the cost of the premiums from your taxes. And, if you
donate a whole life policy, you can deduct the cash value
of the policy and the cost of the whole life insurance
premiums. In both cases, after you die, the charity you
select gets the insurance policy proceeds.

Plan ahead and ensure that you have a quality life
insurance plan in place to protect your family.

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Ryan Patterson is president of US Insurance Online, based
in Austin, TX. He graduated in 2000 from the University of
Texas with a combined business and computer science degree,
and started US Insurance Online in May of 2005 with fellow
entrepreneur Jim Waltrip. Visit
http://www.USInsuranceOnline.com for help shopping for
insurance and for free insurance quotes.

Tips for choosing a Savings Account in Australia

Money can be a tough thing to manage and even harder if you
don’t earn very much from your job. When it comes to
electricty bills, water bills, groceries and other expenses
if you don’t track what you spend them you’ll wonder where
it’s all going and when unexpected things come up that
needs to be paid for a savings account (especially a high
interest account) can bail you out. By putting in as much
as you can every week you will make life easier for
yourself in the long run.

Many people use the first bank account that they come
across without looking at the interest rate and fees and
this is a mistake because fees will eat away at your hard
earned savings and you may not be maximizing your income
with a low interest rate, so make sure you check your
current interest rate and look for a better deal, it’s best
to look every few months as banks are always changing their
rates some go up some go down.

As many people tend not to have a good savings habit
another way is to have your employer put part of your wage
directly into a savings account you can’t access so easily
(one without a key card perhaps) and the rest into your
normal account, this way it’s easy to make a habit of not
spending it and will benefit your greatly when you need the
money. It will become such a habit that you won’t even miss
the extra money because you will learn to live without it.

Any bank you go to should be able to advise you on what
will be the best account to maximise your money, they have
trained specialists who should be able to break it down
into details so that you can understand everthing easily,
if you can’t understand then perhaps try another bank
because that is their job to get you to understand what you
are doing rather than trying to sell you their services.

So your aim is to try to save on consistent weekly or
monthly basis, make it a habit and you will soon see that
it becomes easier over term and will benefit you greatly in
the long term.

If you want to find a high interest bank account in
Australia, then there are many comparison sites around.
Just try a search in google or yahoo.

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Andrew is a writer for many Australian websites covering
topics in the fields of Finance including
http://www.banksavingsaccounts.com.au , Insurance, Travel
and others.