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Almost every night, often at multiple times, there will be a television ad for a life insurance product that requires no physical exams. Some life policies have a provision in which if you survive a qualifying period of time, then you get full coverage. If you don't, then the beneficiaries get the premiums you paid in, and usually with interest that they will have earned. Instead of a physical examination to see if you are healthy, simply living for the next one or two years becomes the exam.

Often, and you need to watch for this in the details (the "fine print") of your policy, obvious accidents would still be fully covered. If there was a heart attack, for example, that caused you to lose control of your car, and this happened during the qualifying period, then the insurance company might have cause to merely pay the amount of money you paid in, giving this to the beneficiaries. Something in the same set of circumstances where you had an accident and the injuries, say loss of blood, then caused a heart attack, that usually would be ruled an accidental death. In this case, your beneficiaries would most likely get the full face value of your policy, possibly even during the qualifying period. Again, your policy provisions will tell for certain.

Frequently, after you pass the initial qualifying period, then whether you were the proverbial "healthy as a horse" or "sick as a dog" person, the beneficiaries will get the full face amount of your policy. As long as you are paying the premiums on time, or someone paying them for you, then you have insurance, again, under most such policies.

As with other insurance policies, life insurance has purposes. You may have taken the policy to pay for final expenses, such as your funeral and special wishes. You might have bought the policy as a parting gift. Say you want to help a grandchild, or as a donation to your favorite charity. Some such things may be best kept secret, but others may have distinct interest if you are incapacitated by illness or injury and the premiums go unpaid. So tell someone else not only the what and where of your will and insurance policies, but the way of it, so that your intentions are honored and continued when you are unable to do so yourself.

Learn more about this author, Larry Swinford.
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