When you get married, a lot of things from both your life and your partner’s life get thrown together, including finances, households, families and a host other things that you cannot really predict. But one thing you can take care of is dealing with your life insurance policies. There are a few things new couples can do to either enhance their life insurance coverage or reduce the amount they pay in premiums. Here are a few things to keep in mind when thinking about what happens to your life insurance policies when you get married.
Combining Policies
One popular option for couples thinking about what to do with their separate life insurance policies is to combine them into one policy. This often results in lower premium rates and and even better benefits if you’re lucky. There are a couple ways of doing this. You can either try to add your spouse to your existing policy, or you can try and get yourself added to your spouse’s. Either way, you should be able to get some type of discount. If you can get more family members on board, you may be able to get an even larger percentage reduction per month.
Terminate or Keep Old Policies?
Another option for newly married couples thinking about what to do with their respective life insurance policies is to simply let their existing ones expire. Of course, you’ll want to find a new policy and have it in place before you discontinue your old one, but by simply not paying your premiums every month, the policy will be cancelled. This works well if your current policy is too rigid to work for both you and your spouse, or if the company absolutely won’t renegotiate premiums. But remember, if you are over 65, you may be able to perform a senior life insurance settlement that would basically sell out the cash value of your life insurance policy upon payout.
Troubleshooting Addition Of New Policy
There are still a few traps to be careful of when considering what to do with your life insurance policy after you get married. One of the most common obstacles is that people’s work may not allow combining for the company sponsored policies. If one of the two newlywed’s work prohibits them from adding the other to his or her policy, or if combining restricts renegotiations, that couple may have to scrap that contract and go for an entirely new one. Either that, or they’ll have to go with their partner’s program unless the partner’s work-sponsored contract prohibits it as well. This is more common that one might think, as employers often help work out special rates for young single workers that may not transfer in later years to both that person and their new spouse.
