The Story Behind Life Insurance Riders

In life insurance, there are certain features that can be added to your policy. These are called riders. A rider is a separate product being sold as additional to the life insurance policies. It is a package that consists of specific benefits at a price. When you decide to buy a rider and add it to your life insurance policy, you add the whole package - the benefits and the price. So what are the different types of riders you can avail of?

There are both similar and different kinds of riders that can be added to the different types of life insurance. There are simple riders that simply increase the life insurance coverage of the regular life insurance policy. This goes for both whole life and term life. Aside from that, however, there are many other types that offers specific benefits.

There is a rider called cost of living rider. The main purpose of this is to make the benefits allocated for the beneficiaries' cost of living bigger. This can be a protection against expected inflation. Second, there's the spouse insurance rider. Most married couples go for joint insurance, but this is another option. You can choose to insure your spouse within the same contract by simply buying this additional rider. This rider, however, is only valid for a certain term. This means that your spouse can only have term life insurance under this rider. Thirdly, another very common type of rider is the accidental death rider.

This is also known as double indemnity rider. Its main purpose is to provide an additional amount of benefit to the beneficiaries in the event that death of the policyholder is caused by an accident. In most cases, this rider gives an amount equal to the original value of the policy. Thus, this means that the beneficiaries will get double the original benefits if the policyholder dies in an accident. However, the boundaries of what are considered accidents should be cleared between your life insurance company and you. Fourth, there's the guaranteed insurability rider. This rider aims to guarantee you the chance to buy a secondary life insurance policy other than your first policy even without medical requirements.

Mostly, this is good for people who experience a life-changing or status-changing situation when it comes to their health. This will make sure that whatever happens to your health in the future, you can easily get additional life insurance coverage. Fifth, there is what is called a family income benefit rider. This rider aims to give your family income after your death. By income, this means to say that payments will be given to them regularly. Before buying this rider, you need to determine how many years your family needs the income. Sixth, there's the child term rider. A child term rider is a provision for a child to be included in your policy. The provision is for if ever the child dies before reaching a specific age. If the child outlives that age, this rider can be turned into another type of insurance.

Those are only the more common types of riders you can avail of. If you think you have some special considerations and you want to add something to your policy, make sure that you ask your agent about what riders you can buy.