Breathe Easier…With Living Benefits
Life Happens. Plan for Today…Protect Tomorrow.
Living benefits is life insurance you don’t have to die to use. Accelerated benefits riders allow you to access all or part of your death benefit while you are living, if you experience a qualifying terminal, chronic, or critical illness, or critical injury. Once you qualify, you can use the benefit for any reason, such as:
- Household expenses
- Adult Day Care
- Home modifications
- Nursing home care
- Quality of life expenditures
Terminal Illness
What Qualifies?
Generally, if you have been diagnosed with a terminal illness that will result in death within 24 months of certification of the illness by a physician.
Receiving Your Benefit
The benefit payment will be a lump sum. There is no waiting period or annual benefit limit, but there is a lifetime limit on the amount of benefits you can receive across all Accelerated Benefits Riders.
Here if you need it
You can elect to either:
- Request the full acceleration, on a discounted basis, and use the lumpsum as you wish.
- Choose to leave a portion of the policy’s death benefit intact and receive a partial benefit.
- Choose to leave the entire policy intact for your beneficiary.
Chronic Illness
What Qualifies?
A doctor has certified, within the past 12 months, that you are unable to perform two out of six “activities of daily living” for a period of at least 90 consecutive days without assistance, or that you are cognitively impaired.
Activities of Daily Living
- Bathing
- Continence
- Dressing
- Eating
- Toileting
- Transferring
Receiving Your Benefit
There is an annual limit on the amount of benefits you can receive. There is also a lifetime limit on the amount of benefits you can receive across all Accelerated Benefits Riders.
Here if you need it
Note that you do not have to be in a licensed facility to receive payments, and that you can apply for benefits every 12 months. Benefits can be used for any reason (with 1 state exception), and do not need to be used for medical expenses.
If you should need it, and you qualify, after the waiting period you can:
- Accelerate portions of your death benefit every year to receive benefit payments.
- Leave the policy intact for your beneficiary.
Critical Illness or Critical Injury
A loved one may have an unexpected hospital stay and the unexpected medical bills that go with it. We may fi nd ourselves struggling to pay medical bills or have medical debt.
What Qualifies?
Critical Illness includes:
- ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease)
- Aorta Graft Surgery
- Aplastic Anemia
- Blindness
- Cancer
- Cystic Fibrosis
- End Stage Renal Failure
- Heart Attack
- Heart Valve Replacement
- Major Organ Transplant
- Motor Neuron Disease
- Stroke
- Sudden Cardiac Arrest
Critical Injury includes:
- Coma
- Paralysis
- Severe Burns
- Traumatic Brain Injury
Here if you need it
Receiving Your Benefit
The discounted benefit you receive for the critical illness or critical injury rider takes into consideration four different categories dependent on the severity of the illness:
Minor | Moderate | Severe | Life Threatening
The highest payout will result from the Life Threatening category.
You can elect to either:
- Request the full acceleration, on a discounted basis, and use the lumpsum as you wish.
- Choose to leave a portion of the policy’s death benefit intact and receive a partial benefit.
- Choose to leave the entire policy intact for your beneficiary.
Long-Term Care
Long-term care/extended care costs have gone up substantially in the last 10 years. Unfortunately, the statistics are not in our favor, a plan to address these costs should be included in every retirement strategy.
The good news is we work with hybrid insurance plans that leverage your dollar in case you need it for extended care, but remain 100% accessible for withdrawal if you don’t.