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Your life insurance monthly premium can start looking less and less appealing once you've retired. It's a scenario Dan Simon, a retirement planning adviser with Daniel A. White & Associates in Middletown, Del., has seen quite often, even with his own parents. "The cost of the insurance had risen to the point where it was getting unaffordable. They were wondering do we really need to keep this coverage now that the kids are all grown up?"
If you stop paying your premiums, you lose your life insurance coverage, and your heirs wouldn't get anything back for what you've paid in. If you cancel a policy that has cash value, a reserve of money built up in some types of life insurance, the insurer sends you a check for that amount, though it will be far less than the listed death benefit.
Over the past 20 years, a third option went mainstream: selling your policy to a company, a practice known as a life settlement, with the buyer getting the death benefit when you die.
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"It's kind of morbid when you think about it. A group buys boatloads of policies from people that have fallen on hard times and can no longer afford their insurance," profiting from the seller's death, says Simon. "In theory, they want you to die tomorrow. If you live another 20 years, it's a bad investment for them."
Selling a life insurance policy generally isn't a great deal for you either, and there are better alternatives worth exploring. Simon finds that people typically turn to selling a policy when they're desperate. Usually, it's because they've spent down their other retirement assets, or they might be dealing with high medical bills. "It's a measure of last resort, like taking a reverse mortgage. I rarely see them working out well for people, and they could en
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Looking for a great cash-back credit card? You're hardly alone. In a survey from personal-finance site WalletHub, 79% of people said they are most interested in earning cash-back credit card rewards, a significantly higher percentage than those who prefer rewards points or miles.
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To help you in your search, we have compiled a list of great cards that provide cash back on every purchase (or reward you with points that you can easily trade for cash at a strong value).
For each card, we've calculated a typical annual rebate based on spending patterns in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey and assuming $25,000 spent on the card annually (unless otherwise noted). For cards that do not waive their annual fee the first year, we've subtracted the annual fee from the cash value of the annual rebate.
Best Cards for Flat-Rate Cash Back
These cards provide simple and strong cash-back rewards on all spending.
Wells Fargo Active Cash Visa
Website: www.wellsfargo.comInterest rate: 0% for 15 months, then 17.24% to 27.24%
Annual fee: None
Sign-up bonus: $200 back if you spend $1,000 in the first three months
Typical annual rebate: $500
This card provides 2% cash back on all purchases, making it a great card to slip into your wallet if you prefer simple, straightforward rewards. Ways to redeem your cash back include as a statement credit, cash at the ATM with a Wells Fargo debit or ATM card (in $20 increments), gift cards ($25 increments), or a credit to a qualifying Wells Fargo credit card, checking account or mortgage. A nice side b
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