costbenefit
New Member
- 2
When my son was born four years ago, my wife and I purchased Long-Term Disability policies from Northwestern Mutual. We did not purchase Additional Benefit Riders, and since we got our policies our income has gone up, leaving us undercovered in terms of income replacement.
I reached out to our broker about increasing our benefit amount, and he said that we didn't have to go through full medical screening just to "top off" our coverage, but could just answer medical questionnaires. He said the Additional Benefit Rider just allows you to retain your right to purchase more coverage if your health changes, and that as long as we were still healthy we wouldn't be paying higher premiums.
When reveiwing the changes for signature, I noticed that instead of increasing the benefit on our existing policies, the agent had sold us entirely new policies. The premium per dollar of benefit is essentially the same (at least in year 1, I haven't checked in future years), so I asked why it was necessary to issue new policies instead of increasing benefits on existing policies. He responded that this was necessary because we are older now than when our first policies were issued.
Having two policies each seems overly complicated to me. Is this typical? Does my agent's commission increase with the sale of new policies? If I elect to add the Additional Benefit Rider now will I be able to increase coverage later without buying another whole new policy? If I become disabled will I have to file a claim on each policy?
This could get ridiculous if income keeps increasing over time. I'm only in my 30s and could see us each having half a dozen policies in the next 30 years. I'd go to my agent directly with these questions, but I'm a little skeptical that he's sold new policies to juice his commission and therefore won't give a straight answer. Any insight from members here appeciated.
I reached out to our broker about increasing our benefit amount, and he said that we didn't have to go through full medical screening just to "top off" our coverage, but could just answer medical questionnaires. He said the Additional Benefit Rider just allows you to retain your right to purchase more coverage if your health changes, and that as long as we were still healthy we wouldn't be paying higher premiums.
When reveiwing the changes for signature, I noticed that instead of increasing the benefit on our existing policies, the agent had sold us entirely new policies. The premium per dollar of benefit is essentially the same (at least in year 1, I haven't checked in future years), so I asked why it was necessary to issue new policies instead of increasing benefits on existing policies. He responded that this was necessary because we are older now than when our first policies were issued.
Having two policies each seems overly complicated to me. Is this typical? Does my agent's commission increase with the sale of new policies? If I elect to add the Additional Benefit Rider now will I be able to increase coverage later without buying another whole new policy? If I become disabled will I have to file a claim on each policy?
This could get ridiculous if income keeps increasing over time. I'm only in my 30s and could see us each having half a dozen policies in the next 30 years. I'd go to my agent directly with these questions, but I'm a little skeptical that he's sold new policies to juice his commission and therefore won't give a straight answer. Any insight from members here appeciated.