What Is An Accelerated Death Benefit On Life Insurance? 
The accelerated benefit is a premium free rider on practically all term and permanent plans . This rider allows policyholders with a terminal illness , usually 12 to 24 months of life expectancy to receive a percentage of the face amount of their policy usually 50 % or higher to deal with end of life expenses . This is very common in the US since the 1980s Aids epidemic . During this period Viatical Life Settlement companies were out of control buying Aids patients policies for pennies on the dollar so the patients could use the money for medicine and experimental procedures still excluded under most health insurance plans . To slow this practice down life insurance companies started adding the accelerated death benefit to accomplish the same thing at a better rate than the Viatical companies were paying . It is now very common on all plans . 