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Buying life insurance is different at every stage of your life. We always say that if someone you care about is financially dependent on you, then purchasing life insurance makes sense.
However, those financial dependencies can be different as you age. The older you get, the more expensive life insurance becomes.
Below, you’ll be able to find all of our life insurance articles for different ages, from 20 years old all the way to seniors over 80. After that, you’ll learn a few insider tips to keep in mind when purchasing life insurance that has to do with your age and also some general advice based on your age.
Life Insurance By Age Group
On this site, we have written everything you’d need to know if you’re shopping for life insurance at a certain age. Below are the articles for each age range.
- Life Insurance in Your 20’s
- Life Insurance in Your 30’s
- Life Insurance in Your 40’s
- Life Insurance in Your 50’s
- Life Insurance in Your 60’s
- Life Insurance in Your 70’s
For each article above, you can find rates for specific ages, the best companies depending on your situation, and tip to find the best type of policy for you. You can also find tips to save on life insurance for each age.
Next, you’ll learn more generally how age affects life insurance.
Tip #1: Life Insurance Companies Use “Age Nearest” or “Current Age”
Most life insurance companies use “age nearest” to determine your age. This means that when you place your life insurance policy in force and you’re within 6 months of your next birthday, they’ll actually determine your rates as if you are 1 year older. Which effectively means your rates will be more expensive.
Keep in mind that the underwriting process can take 4-8 weeks. So even if you’re 8 months to your next birthday, there could be a surprise increase in rates when your application finally gets approved – solely based on you being nearest to your next age.
However, some life insurance companies use your current age to determine your age. Which means that as long as you place your life insurance in force before your next birthday, your rates will remain the same.
The instant quotes you see on our website are all based on today’s date – so please keep that in mind.
If this is confusing or if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call. I wouldn’t concern yourself with this until you’re ready to apply for coverage. Make sure when you apply that you ask your agent if your birthday will effect your rates when your policy is approved. I hate to say it, but many life insurance agents overlook this (we don’t, it’s part of our quoting process).
Tip #2: Backdate Your Age to Save on Life Insurance
Let me preface this tip by saying that age is an obvious factor in pricing your life insurance – so it’s important to keep your age as low as possible when your policy is issued.
If you just had a birthday or your “age nearest” just passed (as described above), we can backdate your life insurance policy to give you rates at your previous age.
BY LAW, you can backdate any life insurance up to 6 months in order to get a lower rate.
Backdating simply means choosing a date that has passed in order to secure a lower rate. In order to do this, you’ll have to pay for premiums between that date you choose (usually 3 days before your age change) and the current date.
So when backdating you have to weigh whether it’s worth it or not. Are the savings significant enough over the span of the policy to essentially “buy up” your previous age? We’ll do these calculations for you and help you make a decision.
Depending on your unique situation, it may not always be best to backdate a policy. You really don’t even need to consider backdating to save age unless you’re in your 40’s, 50’s, 60’s or 70’s. The premium savings in your 20’s and 30’s will be minuscule.
Again, if this is confusing or you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Life Insurance in your 50s
Your 50’s are typically your peak earning and savings years. If you have kids, they’re typically grown and on their own. At this point in time, many of our clients are tackling big debts to pay off before retirement combined with getting more serious about working toward retirement goals.
A lot of people in their 50’s who don’t have a lot saved up for retirement (most don’t) are looking at term life insurance policies that expire at their projected retirement or burial policies to take care of any final debts and burial costs.
It appears that many people entering their 50’s are restructuring their life insurance programs as they make these big moves towards retirement and on the more emotional side, start to see more of their friends and family’s health start to deteriorate.
Life insurance planning becomes a lot more serious in your 50’s as rates start to increase significantly each age that passes by:
50 years old
51 years old
52 years old
53 years old
54 years old
55 years old
56 years old
57 years old
58 years old
59 years old
Final Thoughts
Everyone’s situation is different. Age is just one factor in the overall cost of your life insurance.
If you got this far in the article, the biggest takeaways are:
1. Factor in your age nearest/current age situation (we’ll do that for you) when looking for life insurance rates. If there’s an opportunity to save you money, we’ll consider backdating to save age.
2. You can get instant life insurance quotes based on your birth date by filling out the form on the right. It factors in age nearest/current age, but it’s based on today’s date. Your actual rates will be based on your age when the policy issues.
If you have any questions about purchasing life insurance, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
