- Purchased for a specific length of time, or term - generally one to 20 years.

- The amount of the pay-off or face value varies depending upon your needs.

- Upon the policy owner's death, the face value is paid to the beneficiary(ies).

- You want to ensure that your family can meet major needs if something happens to you.

- You are just starting out in life and need to keep expense low.

- You want a policy that offers a relatively high face value for a relatively low premium.

- Permanent insurance which has the potential to accumulate cash value.

- Increase or decrease policy's face amount to meet your changing protection needs

- Increase or decrease the dollar amount of your premium payments and make additional lump sum payments to your policy.

- You want to ensure that your family can meet major needs if something happens to you.

- You want the option to borrow against your policy's cash value to meet pressing needs.

- You want the potential to earn a higher rate of return than a whole life account, even though there's a risk that your rate of return could drop

- Variable life is permanent insurance, which allows you to invest a portion of your premium in stocks, bonds, or money market funds in order to build your policy's cash value

- Involves an element of risk because investment performance is not guaranteed

- You want to ensure that your family can meet major needs if something happens to you.

- You want the option to add to your account value by paying an amount above your regular premium.

- You want the potential to earn a higher rate of return on your account investments, even though your rate of return could also drop.

- It's permanent life insurance that you own for your entire lifetime.

- Premiums, or payments, are fixed and can be paid monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually.

- Because your premiums are invested by your insurance company, your policy accrues a cash value, which grows untaxed.

- You want to ensure that your family can meet major needs if something happens to you.

- You want to have a policy that you own for your entire lifetime and accrues cash value, which you can borrow against for any purpose.

- A long term care (LTC) insurance policy helps cover the cost of long term care, picking up where health and disability insurance leave off

- LTC refers to help with daily activities -- such as eating, bathing or dressing -- over an extended period of time.

- It can also include help for those suffering from a severe cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer's disease.

- Because: (1) at some point in your life there is a strong probability that you may need LTC (2) LTC is very expensive.

- If you want access to the highest quality of care and don't want to trade the wealth you've accumulated over a lifetime to pay for your care, LTC insurance can help achieve those goals

- Remember, too, that the need for LTC can happen to anyone, even in the prime of life. And the cost of purchasing LTC insurance is substantially reduced when you purchase it while you're young.