Important points to consider before buying term life insurance online

Shivambhatt
4 min readFeb 25, 2021

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Every Indian loves a good deal on anything that they purchase. Just take a walk through any local market and you will notice the constant exchange of words. The joy of getting an item at a lower price than the originally quoted higher price is unparalleled. If you look at the Indian middle class, bargaining and searching for value is the very backbone of existence. This does not exist because of some petty miserliness but the by-product of those that have grown up in an era where daily items were items of luxury. Hence, to extract the best possible value out of one’s hard-earned money is the mission for daily existence.

We now live in a time when the daily income, savings and standard of living has gone up (from the ’80s). The value chain has chained when it comes to extracting value for purchases. The average Indian middle-class individual may not try to extract value when it comes to daily items like food and cosmetics as their purchasing power has significantly increased. However, there is now the option to buy things that at one point were not available for their parents’ generation — Insurance! So when it comes to buying a Life Insurance, there is always the need to get the possible value. The best part about this is that it is possible and requires just a few sensible moves to ensure that one gets the best bang for a buck!

Insurance can be seen as an essential item now, especially buying term life insurance online. Different insurers offer different term plans and choosing the one that fits the bill can be quite a task. Now, when one is armed with the know-how, then the choice becomes evident and easy to pick. So, let us look at some ways in which you can get the best value for your Term Life Insurance.

1. Understand your Goals and assess your needs: This is an important first step because how can you buy something when you do not know why you are buying it. Is insurance just for you? Is it for your spouse or the entire family? What are the budgets? How much can you afford to spend in a year on Life Insurance? Are you looking for Tax benefits or thinking of saving for the future education of your child?

These are the questions that need to be answered before jumping in. You will need to understand your or your family’s total expenses into the number of years you are looking for coverage. Factor in existing debts and determining the savings needed going forward also needs to be taken care off before buying term life insurance online.

2. Lifestyle Assessment: Always keep in mind that those with habits such as drinking, and smoking are likely to pay a higher premium since the risk is higher. So, making lifestyle changes before buying term life insurance online is helpful as it would mean lower premium rates.

3. Buy Early: It is a simple fact, premiums offered to younger healthier individuals is much lower than older ones. So, if you are smart, get term life insurance sooner rather than later as the expected premium paid through the years would be much lower compared to getting the same insurance plan later.

4. Buying term life insurance online: This is the best option to save money when it comes to paying for premiums. Plans offered online by companies is much lower since the company does not incur costs on brick and mortar stores, documentation, agent fees. The cost is lowered by 25% versus buying it offline. Added to that you have the option to compare the premiums of different companies. It would be easy to compare especially when buying off an aggregator (For example BimaKaro) where the premiums can be compared easily so that you know that you can get the best value for the amount that you are paying.

5. Payment Mechanism: Premiums can be paid in a variety of ways — monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly. When you pay the premium in one lump sum, then insurers tend to offer discounts to incentivize the yearly payments. Since the risk of someone pulling out of insurance is lesser as they have paid for the year.

6. Choose the right instruments: Life Insurance Plans offers additional riders to top up the existing benefits such as accidental benefits, critical illness benefits and others. However, none of these riders is free and in fact, bump up the costs of the premium. So it is important to assess the ones that are useful for you and go for the ones that add value. Be smart when picking our Sum Assured amount. Higher the Assured amount, costlier the premium. Now picking a plan that has an amount that is nearly double your requirement means you are paying an extra premium that otherwise could have been used for riders instead. The rule of thumb suggests that the Sum Assured should approximately be 10 times of your annual income.

These are the best ways to extract maximum value out of your term life insurance. Out of all the points above, buying term life insurance online is the best possible decision. Online Plans allow you flexibility, they give you a plethora of options and most importantly it is secure. Gone are the days when purchasing insurance was limited to the dodgy advice given by Insurance agents. In the digital age, you are in complete control. BimaKaro.in offers Life Insurance plans that are tailor-made for you. In case of any doubts or queries, there is a customer care team that is available 24/7. Log on to www.bimakaro.in now to check out insurance plans with low premiums!

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