Health Insurance

• The most important purpose of health insurance is protection for you and your family during an unanticipated illness or injury that may be exceedingly expensive. Without health insurance, many people can have a hard time paying for medical bills. Those who have health insurance often have a regular doctor and are able to get care whenever needed.
  
  

Health Insurance Types

• The first type of health insurance is most commonly offered by employers--the group insurance plans. The advantage of this is that the price of health insurance premiums will be cheaper compared to paying the whole premium alone because you are part of a group. The second type is individual insurance, which you can purchase directly from an insurance firm. It is designed for coverage of an individual only as opposed to multiple people. It is often more expensive than group insurance and may offer less coverage.
  
  

Life Insurance

• According to the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education (LIFE), 93 percent of Americans say that life insurance is what most people need. There are various kinds of life insurance, but the main idea is that a policy provides a certain amount of money paid to your family if you die, thus leaving them to be financially assured. Normally, people with dependents opt for life insurance, since the burden will be greater on these people.
  
  

Life Insurance Types

• Term life insurance is a policy type providing protection for a designated period of time. You have a certain amount of coverage for a set period, such as 25 years. When the term period ends, so does your coverage. Permanent insurance is for lifetime protection. Permanent life insurance policies also often have a cash investment component in which the policy generates a cash value that you can borrow against or take in lieu of your death benefit. The four sub categories are whole life, variable life, universal life and variable universal life, each differing slightly based off of the individual insurance company that provides it.
  
  

Determining Insurance Needs

• In making a decision on which life and health insurance policies to get for you and your family, there are several criteria to consider. Based on LIFE website's data, your present and future financial obligations minus the total of the life insurance you already have--if you have it--and the earnings, investments and savings of your spouse is equal to the amount of life insurance you need.
  
  In terms of health insurance, you may consider the policy's coverage and benefits, as well as inclusions of medical services-like hospitals, emergency care and doctors.