What is Supplement Life Insurance?

Supplement  life insurance is an added benefit if you are already covered under a group policy through your employer. Usually group coverage is not as comprehensive as you may desire as policies are written according to what would benefit the group as a whole. As an individual with a family of your own, you may have different needs that are not covered through a group plan. If you find yourself in this position, buying a supplement lifeinsurance policy would be a wise decision.

An employee is eligible for supplement  life insurance if he or she performs all of their regular duties on a full-time basis (check with your employer as some companies consider “full-time” as 17.5 hours or more while other companies require you work the full 40 hour weeks). Again, you must already be covered under your company’s basic group term life insurance policy. Spouses and dependent children are also eligible for coverage if you buy a policy of your own.

What are the Benefits for Adding a Supplement life insurance?

There are a couple of benefits to purchasing supplement life insurance. The first is a waiver of premium. If you become completely disabled prior to your 65th birthday, the insurance company will continue to keep your policy intact and active until you become 65 years old. The stipulation is that your disability must last for nine consecutive months before the benefit can begin. If your disability continues indefinitely, the insurance company will not collect any further payments of premium from you. An individual is considered “totally disabled” when that individual is unable to work at any occupation collecting wages because of injury or illness. You must also provide proof of continuing disability annually.

A second benefit to taking out a supplement life insurance policy is the Accelerated Living benefit. If an individual is diagnosed with a terminal illness and given only 12 months or less to live, that individual may apply for a percentage of their combined basic group and supplement life insurance policies. The percentage is usually paid in a lump sum. Check with your carrier, as the benefit is usually 50% of the active face value amounts or $50,000.00, whichever is less. While an employee and their spouse are eligible for the accelerated living benefits, children of the employee are not. In most cases, coverage is portable -- which means you can take your coverage with you if you retire, reduce your hours or change jobs.

The only exclusion is the standard waiver of benefit payment should the employee or their spouse/dependents commit suicide within the first two years that the policy came into effect. Check with your carrier as in some states this exclusion applies to both sane and insane individuals while some states only the sane.

Features of Supplement  Life Insurance

Some of the features of this policy are as follows

Flexible Options

The insured can choose the amount of coverage as per his desire. This applies for additional insurance policies taken in all forms of insurance like permanent, term, whole and universal. However insurance companies allow for additional coverage in group insurance policies taken by the employer. For the other forms of insurance it varies from company to company.

Proof

When you choose Supplement life insurance policies you are also given the flexibility of changing the amount of coverage. Whenever you want to insure for a very high amount you need to provide authenticated evidence and documentary proofs to establish that you are able to pay such an amount. This proof is referred as evidence of insurability.