Term life insurance has a decisive advantage over other types of insurance: in principle, there are no problems with the payment of benefits, since the insured event is clearly defined by the death of the policyholder. With this in mind, you can usually always choose a term life insurance policy based on price.

The price of a term life insurance policy is determined on the basis of various factors. The decisive factor for the price is, above all, the risk of death of the insured during the term of the contract. As a rule, the higher the insurance company estimates the risk of death, the more expensive the insurance will be. The state of health also plays a decisive role in the cost of term life insurance. However, some insurers also offer term life insurance without a health check.

Caution: each insurance company weights the price factors for term life insurance differently. For example, age, health status, weight, work activity and the amount insured may all play a role.

Tip: Whether term life insurance, auto insurance or liability insurance, it's usually much cheaper for you to pay your premium annually, fixed.

FOR WHOM IS TERM LIFE INSURANCE NOT WORTHWHILE?

If you do not have any dependents who need to be provided for financially after your death, you can do without term life insurance. Nor do students and trainees need this coverage. The only exception is if you are already taking out a loan at this stage of your life, you should consider term life insurance.

HOW TO FIND THE BEST TERM LIFE INSURANCE POLICY

To take out term life insurance, you should first and foremost consider the amount you want to cover and the benefits you want your term life insurance to include.

Caution: Before taking out insurance, be sure to check your financial situation. You should definitely ask yourself these questions: Who in your family definitely needs term life insurance? Do you want to insure yourselves jointly or separately? And how high does the sum insured need to be? Based on your answers, you can start looking for a suitable provider.

WHAT SUM INSURED SHOULD I CHOOSE FOR TERM LIFE INSURANCE?

The sum insured is particularly important when taking out term life insurance. Without the right amount of insurance, your dependents will not be adequately provided for in the event of an emergency.

With regard to the amount, it also depends on what you personally want to cover. If you are taking out a loan (for example, for a property), you should choose at least the residual debt of the loan as the sum insured. If you want to insure your family in principle, we recommend that you make a detailed cost breakdown. This way you will know how much your family needs to live in any case.

As for the sum insured, you can usually choose between a constant and a decreasing sum insured, these are the advantages:

CONSTANT SUM INSURED - HIGH PREDICTABILITY AND CONSTANT COSTS.

You can agree on a constant sum insured with your provider, in which case the amount you pay is constant throughout the term. Many families choose this option because it is easy to plan.

Tip: As you get older, your own income usually increases. Then the need for coverage is automatically lower because your family's income increases continuously. Nevertheless, you should take inflation into account, which reduces the value of the sum insured over time.

DECREASING SUM INSURED - INDIVIDUALLY SENSIBLE

Alternatively, you can also agree on an annually decreasing sum insured (called annuity in insurance American). For example, if you pay off a loan, the sum insured decreases as the remaining debt dwindles. This is a good idea, for example, if you only want to insure real estate financing.

Or you can take out a linearly decreasing sum insured, in which case the sum insured decreases by the same amount each year.

Important: Sometimes it also makes sense to increase the sum insured. However, this is not possible automatically and free of charge with every insurance policy.

THE CONTRACT TERM FOR TERM LIFE INSURANCE

You should also determine the term of your term life insurance individually according to your needs. If you want to take out a term life insurance policy where the sum insured decreases continuously, you do not have to worry about the term - because then your insurance policy ends at a fixed point in time. With a term life insurance policy with a constant sum insured, you decide on the term yourself.

Choose the term until your insurance needs are expected to cease. If you cover your children, for example, they should be protected until they earn money themselves.

As a general rule, it's better to add a few years to the term of the policy - you can usually still cancel your insurance early. A term adjustment, on the other hand, is often very expensive or not possible at all.

TERM LIFE INSURANCE IN THE TEST - THESE ARE THE BEST RATES

There are a wide variety of term life insurance policies on the insurance market. Which term life policy makes sense for you depends primarily on your individual life situation. Also note that there are enormous price differences between providers. We have tested various term life insurance policies for you and found the best rates.

THIS IS HOW WE TESTED

Because term life insurance policies with decreasing sums insured are difficult to compare, for our test of the best term life insurance policies we only compared rates that include a constant sum insured. Although we were not able to examine all insurances on the market, our comparison should help you to find the best term life insurance for you. We examined the different rates with the help of a test scenario:

Our test person is male and 35 years old, he also has an office job. The test person is 1.88 meters tall and is of normal weight according to the body mass index. She has also always been a non-smoker and does not engage in any "dangerous" hobbies such as riding a motorcycle. The tester does not necessarily need an option to increase rates or extend the contract term. And: We only compared term life insurance policies that cover at least a sum insured of 200,000 dollars.

Important: We can't give you a blanket answer as to which term of term life insurance is right for you - that depends on your financial circumstances. For our test person, we set the term at 20 years, since his youngest child is five years old and we assume that he will be financially on his own two feet by the time he is 25.

Our recommendation: We believe that for term life insurance, the basic tariff generally covers all important benefits and is therefore sufficient for many people. Against this background, it is primarily the exact price that determines whether a particular term life insurance policy is worthwhile for you. However, always take a look at the insurance benefits as well and make sure that all important conditions are included.

TERM LIFE INSURANCE FROM EUROPE

For our test person, for example, the E-RL tariff from Europa Insurance is a good choice. This tariff is the provider's standard tariff - it includes all the important benefits of term life insurance. Europa also pays out the sum insured if the insured person dies abroad. Another plus: Europa offers provisional insurance cover. From the date of entry until the start of your insurance coverage, the provisional protection applies free of charge up to a maximum of 100,000 euros if the policyholder dies as a result of an accident. The minimum contract period is one year, and you can cancel this term life policy at any time at the end of an insurance period.

Tip: As an option, Europa-Insurances offers the additional protection "Cancer Plus" for an additional charge. If there are no queries about your details, you will have your term life insurance policy in your hands within 24 hours.

By the way: Europa Insurances is a direct insurer, so the rates are very inexpensive in comparison.