Also ask whether an agent has earned any professional designations. Regardless of whether an agent has these initials on a business card, the key is finding someone you can trust. One way to put an agent to the test is to ask about discounts that can lower your premium. Once an agent has recommended a specific policy, ask whether there's a lower-commission version available. There are other ways to pay less for life insurance.
Most insurance companies reduce their rates for nonsmokers.
One carrier even offers a discount for runners who submit official results from a race at least 10 kilometers long with their policy application. Perhaps the most confusing aspect of buying cash-value life insurance is making sense of policy illustrations. These computer-generated pages are filled with columns of numbers that purport to show what you can expect to pay for that specific policy, along with the cash value you may accumulate in the years ahead. The illustration is not a contract, but unwary shoppers are known to use these projections as a basis for buying a policy. Illustrations may appear official, but they are merely guesses of future results based on the assumptions an agent feeds into the computer.