Many people think that the need and uses for life insurance are only applicable during one's working years. In fact, for many people, the only life insurance they ever have is that which is provided by their employer. Permanent life insurance, however, has a number of features that can provide benefits to you and your family both before and after your retirement. Some of these include:

Premium that will never increase.

Cash value that builds on a tax-deferred basis and can be used at any time for any purpose. For many people, the decision is an easy one. Often, for young working couples, the logical choice is one's spouse or partner. Many parents, however, might be tempted to name their children as beneficiaries. This could be a drastic mistake, especially if the children are minors

The creation of an instant estate at a time when your loved ones need it most.

Permanent death protection that will enable you to spend down additional assets and maximize your income during your retirement years. For many people, a big factor in purchasing life insurance is the cost of the annual premium. If you did a very quick comparison of Group Term and many other types of life insurance, especially individual whole life insurance, it might appear that the Group Term is much less expensive. For a young employee, the initial yearly cost of Group Term might be pennies on the dollar when compared to whole life insurance. This is because the Group Term offers pure insurance protection only, and no potential to build any cash value. We'll see in a moment why this feature might make Group Term, in the long run, much more expensive.

The ability to maximize your pension benefits.

The presence of a guaranteed death benefit from permanent life insurance will give you the ability to increase your retirement income by enabling you to spend principal over your lifetime as well as income from retirement investment assets.

A guaranteed permanent life insurance benefit will provide assurance to a surviving spouse that they will be well provided for. Of course, this is dependent on whether the policy is in effect on the date of the death and the amount of loans against the policy For example.

When the principal of retirement assets is being used to increase income during retirement, the guaranteed permanent death benefit of life insurance will provide the legacy to heirs that otherwise would come from income taxable retirement assets. Another advantage of Group Term is that it is typically written on a non-medical basis. That is, the employee does not have to take a medical exam and provide "evidence of insurability" - coverage is typically guaranteed. In many instances one's employer will cover at least a portion of the cost of the insurance.

Inflation's eroding effect during retirement years can be offset by electing to have the annual dividend on permanent life insurance paid in cash to supplement other retirement income.