1. 5082 POINTS
    J Paul Wilson CFP, CHFC
    Certified Financial Planner, JPW Insurance Retirement Investments, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
    Premiums increase is some policies and not in others, depending on the type of contract. One thing that does increase each year is the mortality cost (the chance of dying). How the increasing mortality cost is dealt with has a large impact on the premium.

    For example with a 5 year renewable term plan you pay a level premium for 5 years and the excess over the yearly cost in invested to smooth out the premium. With a permanent level premium plan the insurance company actuaries do a calculation based on factors including morality cost, expense interest rate. They need an end so age 100 is often used. The calculation determines how much is needed to be pay on a level premium base.

    If you have further questions, or feel that I could be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.

    If you would like to work with a local life insurance broker, you could start with a Google search. For example, if you search for: life insurance broker Halifax or life insurance agent Halifax, my name, along with several others, will come up. You can use the same method to find a life insurance broker in your community.
    Answered on April 6, 2014
  2. 10968 POINTS
    Tim Wilhoit
    Owner, Your Friend 4 Life, Brentwood TN
    Life insurance only increases on certain types of plans. For example, an annual renewable term life policy is very affordable but premiums increase annually. Term life policies such as 10-20-30-35 year term policies do not increase until the term is completed. Although, the policy will not cancel in almost every case you will see an increase in premiums about 10 fold. This is usually painful enough for you to drop the coverage and apply again. This way an underwriter has another chance to evaluate you at an appropriate premium. Typically policies such as whole life, universal life, indexed universal life and variable life premiums should stay steady if funded correctly at point of application.
    Answered on April 6, 2014
  3. 820 POINTS
    Pete Wittman
    President, The Wittman Group, Tennessee
    The cost of life insurance increases with age.  Obviously, the older we get the more likely we are to die, resulting in the life insurance company paying out a claim.  In the words of George Lopez, "Each Birthday is just another year closer to death" or "Studies have shown that the more birthdays you have the longer you live".  The life insurance industry has amassed a large amount of data at what age people die and the cause of death.  With a large enough population, they can predict accurately the average age of a man & woman at death, which helps them derive the cost of insurance based on the age of the insured.  For example, in a 20-yr level term, they simply average out the cost of insurance for that 20 year span.  For a permanent policy, they simply average the cost until the average age of death.  So, all life insurance costs increase as we grow older.  That is the reason why the premiums for insurance are much cheaper when we are younger.  One last consideration... because the cost of insurance increases, if you purchased a permanent (eg universal life, variable universal, etc) and paid only minimum premiums to keep the policy going, you may receive notification that you need to pay a large sum in premium to keep the insurance in force.  This occurs when a policy is underfunded or in other words, the policy owner did not pay enough premiums in to the policy over time and it can not sustain the cost to pay out the death benefit.
    Answered on April 7, 2014
  4. 21750 POINTS
    Jim Winkler
    CEO/Owner, Winkler Financial Group, Houston, Texas
    If you purchased a level premium whole life policy they shouldn't! If you have a universal life or term policy, they will increase either a.) when the term expires , or when you move into a new age bracket, like many of the television and mailbox policies you receive  do; or b.) when you find out that the minimum payments that you've been making for the past several years on your universal life policy weren't enough to pay for the cost of the policy, and now you are going to have to pay up, or lose it. If you would like to discuss this further, please click on the 'contact me' link, I'll be happy to help. Thanks for asking!
    Answered on April 9, 2014
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