What does Term Life Insurance mean with no surrender value?

Question

If I had a 15 year Term Life Insurance at $100,000. with no surrender value. What would it be at the end of 15 years. Can I collect the full amount on this type of insurance?

Answer 1

No value at all. Term Life Insurance will have no cash value at all.

BUT, remember that the amount covered is HIGHER than whole life insurance.

If you have a term insurance, stick with it.

Answer 2

Answer - No. If you don't die before the term is up, you get zero. Term insurance is just that - an insurance in force during the contract term. Outside the duration of the term, you don't have insurance nor can collect anything because it has no cash surrender value.

Answer 3

No.  If the term (15 years in this case) expires, the insurance lapses.  You don't collect anything.  You are confusing term insurance with whole life.

(See Yahoo Finance, "Personal Finance")

Answer 4

The only thing that term insurance pays is a death benefit if you die,  There is no cash value, So long as you make the payments you have a policy but the moment you quite, the policy done.   Its kind of like renting the policy.  Hope this helps.

Answer 5

Term life insurance doesn't build any cash value. At the end of the term, you may be able to renew it or convert it into another life policy. If you die during the term, your beneficiary gets $100k. If you cancel the policy at anytime, you get no money back. You may get a refund of excess premiums you paid (depends on how often you pay, such as yearly payment).

I don't know your situation, but $100k coverage seems small. In the area I live, the average face amount my company issue is around $500k (national average is $275k) on husband and wife for a total coverage of $1 million.

Anyway, you might want to recheck if $100k is enough to cover your family's finances and also check if 15 years is all you need to build wealth for retirement.

Answer 6

Term insurance should NEVER have a surrender value because if u cancel you don't lose money. You're paying ur premium every month and that's it. In cash value insurance surrender values do apply because u agree to overpay ur premium in order for the company to create a separate  savings account for you. If u cancel the policy u surrender a certain amount of the money in that savings to the company. Depending on how long u have had the policy. U can typically borrow from this saving account at 8%.  Yes, that's right they charge u to use you OWN money.

Your much better off buying term and then saving money yourself. Prefferable through mutual funds. As they have a much better rate of return than the cash value accounts.

Also another benefit of term is that u may not have the need of insurance all the way to age 100. (if you've planned finacially) therefore u only pay for a period of time and youre not paying insurance premiums until 100 (or till u die)

Anyway, sorry this is so long but in short Term is better. Make sure someone is not trying to sell u cash value and disguising it at term. TERM insurance has NO savings added to it. You're only paying the cost of ur monthly premium. I don't know which company ur buying through but for 100,000. U should not be paying more than $50 (hopefully less than that even)  but if its a lot more than that I'd make sure ur not getting roped into some cash value.

Answer 7

If you die during the 15 year period then it pays $100,000 to your designated benficiary.  

If you surrender the policy or quit paying the premiums during the 15 year period then you don't get anything.  

If you live to the end of the 15 year period then you also don't get anything and your coverage will end unless your policy has some kind of automatic renewal period.  

Term life insurance is usually relatively inexpensive death protection without any investment portion for a set period of time.