Five Arguments against Purchasing Your Life Insurance Policy on the Internet
When you see the title of this article, you might think we are fighting against ourselves, as a company specializing in the Internet marketing of life and health insurance. We have thousands of people visit our Internet page daily, and many visitors often approach us about whether they can purchase an insurance policy straight through our website. While we have tinkered with and marinated on this idea, we are afraid buying life insurance online is a disservice to our customers.
The following supports our reasoning behind why buying a life insurance policy online just doesn’t make sense:
1. Life insurance, when bought directly via a website, is looked at on a singular level and not as part of an overall financial plan. It should always be evaluated carefully and determined for a specific person – why and how much insurance is necessary and what’s the best type of insurance. All this is very difficult to be done, if you don’t speak to an insurance broker in person or at least over the phone.
2. Life insurance bought straight from a website is limited in its product offering. Most companies selling life insurance online limit their portfolio to a few carriers and in some instances, just one carrier with just a few of their products.
3. There are often some characteristics of the insurance policy that may not be fully explained to you when you purchase the insurance online. Life insurance has many details and features that may not be fully explained online, e.g. some ten-year term policies are not renewable or convertible, or may carry a higher than normal renewable premium.
4. Many insurance products are just too complicated to be sold online. There are too many details in some products (for example Universal Life or Whole Life insurance) that cannot be disclosed when the policy is purchased directly online. In case of BMO’s Universal Life insurance policy, there are more than 400 investment options available. The plan is too complex to be sold online.
5. Any further contact would probably be with a call centre and not a broker.
Just to be understood right – of course the Internet is a useful source of information when purchasing life insurance. The Internet is a perfect education forum when purchasing life insurance. You can find many useful online tools, including our Instant Quote Calculator or Needs Analysis Calculator, which can help you a lot. But it is one thing to look for information and another one to actually purchase an insurance.
