Yes,
Term life insurance can be converted to Whole life insurance or some other form of
permanent life insurance if:
1) The life insurance policy has the option to be converted,
2) you convert the term life policy to permanent life insurance within the time frame required, and
3) you can afford the
premium for the converted life insurance policy.
While
a life insurance company may carry many types of permanent life insurance coverage, they do
not always offer all of them to be used for conversions of term life to permanent life insurance.
Some insurance companies only
allow a term life policy to be converted to one or two permanent policies, and those
may not have all the guarantees or features that you might have chosen if the
whole array of permanent life insurance products was available to you.
Also,
the permanent life insurance policy will be priced at the rates at that time, and at the age
the insured person is at the time of conversion.
You can reduce the face amount of life insurance to the minimum allowed for that permanent life policy, but even $50,000 or $100,000 of permanent life insurance can be very costly at an older age, and for a permanent life product.
However, being able to convert a Term life policy to whole life insurance is a great feature, especially if someone has had a downturn in their health after
getting their initial Term life insurance policy. There are no health requirements to
convert Term life insurance to permanent, and the health rating for the converted life insurance policy
will be the same as it was for the original Term life policy. Learn more about convertible term life insurance.
