How we place a life file
The advisory version of this page: buy-sell funding, key person coverage, and life insurance sized against an estate rather than a rule of thumb.
Review the lineLife insurance
Life insurance, explained without the pressure.
Term, permanent, and the coverage that keeps a business running if an owner is gone. We size it to what it has to carry, then shop it. No hard sell.
The basics
Term or permanent, and how to tell which you are buying.
Almost every life product is a variation on two ideas, and the sales conversation gets much easier once you can name which one is in front of you.
- Term covers a set number of years and pays only if you die inside them. It is the least expensive way to buy a large amount of coverage.
- Permanent, whether whole life or universal, is built to last for life and accumulates cash value, which is why it costs more for the same death benefit.
- Term is usually the right answer for a temporary obligation: a mortgage, the years until the children are grown, a business loan.
- Permanent earns its place when the need does not expire: estate liquidity, a special-needs dependent, a buy-sell agreement between owners.
- Many term policies can be converted to permanent later without new medical questions. That conversion window is worth reading before you buy, not after.
Sizing it
How much coverage is enough.
Rules of thumb are how people end up with a number that has nothing to do with their life. Work from the obligations instead. Add up what would still have to be paid.
- The mortgage balance, and any other debt that would not die with you
- The years of income the household would need to replace, not one year
- Childcare and education still ahead of you
- Final expenses and the taxes on an estate that is not liquid
- Business debt you have personally guaranteed
- Then subtract what is already in place, including coverage through work
The policy at work
Coverage that ends when the job does.
Employer-provided life insurance is a real benefit and a poor plan on its own. It is usually a modest multiple of salary, which is rarely close to the number above, and it belongs to the employer. It ends when the job does, which is exactly the moment you are least able to replace it, and any portability option is typically expensive and time limited.
The usual answer is not to drop it. It is to own a policy that is yours, priced while you are healthy, and treat the group coverage as the extra layer it actually is.
Underwriting
What actually happens after you apply.
An application, health and lifestyle questions, permission to review medical records, and for larger amounts a paramedical exam, which is usually a short visit at your kitchen table. Some carriers will issue smaller policies with no exam at all.
How long it takes and what it costs depend on the carrier, the amount, your age, and your health history. Carriers grade the same history very differently, which is the whole argument for shopping it rather than accepting the first offer. Nothing is in force until the carrier issues the policy and the first premium is paid.
The process
A conversation, not a pitch.
You talk with your dedicated agent, who works out the number with you before naming a product, and the principal reviews the file behind them. For accounts with an estate or a business in them, we work alongside your financial advisors, attorneys, and accountants, so what gets bought fits the plan they are already building.
Then we market it. You see what the carriers came back with, and what changes between them.
Go deeper
Business owners, partners, and estates.
This is the plain-language page for anyone comparing life insurance in New York. When the policy has to fund a buy-sell agreement, cover a key person, or create liquidity in an estate, our life coverage practice goes into how those are structured.
Related coverage
The lines that sit alongside this one.
Business insurance
The coverage on the other side of the same conversation for an owner: liability, property, workers' compensation, and commercial auto.
Review the lineQuestions
What clients ask before they begin.
Written by
Armor Group Insurance Agency
New York licensed independent insurance agency
Armor Group Insurance is an independent insurance agency licensed in New York, New Jersey, and Florida. Coverage availability, limits, endorsements, exclusions, and premiums vary by carrier, by underwriting, and by the specific facts of an account. Life insurance is issued subject to carrier underwriting, and no coverage exists until the carrier issues the policy and the initial premium is paid. Nothing here is tax or legal advice. Talk with your attorney and your accountant about how a policy fits your estate or your business agreements. This page is a general description of the coverage we place. It is not a contract, a binder, a quotation, or a guarantee of coverage, and nothing is bound until a carrier issues the policy. Contact the agency to review your situation and obtain a quotation.
Begin
Start the life insurance conversation.
Tell us what the coverage has to carry. Your dedicated agent will work out the number with you before anyone talks about a product.