When looking into getting South Carolina Life Insurance Quotes it is important to realise that there are a lot of different aspects to consider with regards to getting the perfect life insurance for you. Not only are there state specific factors, but there are also general factors that are applicable to buying life insurance in South Carolina or in any other state in the United States.
In this article I am going to look at a whole range of those different factors, and explore how you can go about getting the perfect SC Life Insurance Quote for you.
Let’s begin by getting a little background on South Carolina and consider the state as a whole.
(If you would like to get a SC Life Quote right now, then simply put your zip code in the above box to get started).
South Carolina – A Little Background…
South Carolina is a relatively small state in size terms being ranked 40th in the US at 32,020 square meters (roughly 200 miles wide by 260 miles long), but has a reasonably high population density in comparison to other states in the US, and hence has a fairly large population of 4,625,384 according to the 2010 census.
The Capital of South Carolina, and the largest city is Columbia which has a city population of 129,272, but a much larger metropolitan population of 767,598 in 2010.
One shocking fact about South Carolina is that whilst the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote was ratified nationally in 1919, that it wasn’t officially ratified in South Carolina until the 1st July 1969 (Mississippi waited until 1984 to ratify it!) It should be said that after 1919 Women could actually vote in these hold-out states, because it only requires 2/3rds of the states to ratify an amendment, and hence it passed into federal law in 1919. But it is quite shocking to think that such attitudes survived so long into the 20th century in some parts of the United States.
However, with all that said, in many ways South Carolina has been quite progressive in many other respects down the years.
Here are some ‘Firsts’ that South Carolina lays claim to:
First Mutual fire insurance company – Friendly Society for the Mutual Insurance of Houses Against Fire, 1735
First Medal of Honor awarded to a black recipient – W.H. Carney – July 18th 1883
First Woman Lawyer in South Carolina – Miss James M. Perry of Greenville was admitted to practice on May 4th 1918
Jean Teal – the first woman elected to state supreme court in 1988 and later elected Chief Justice in 2000
The State GDP of South Carolina in 2010 was $164.3 billion, which is roughly equivalent to the GDP of Pakistan ($164.8 billion) according to the International Monetary Fund.
South Carolina Life Insurance – The Facts about SC Life Insurance
There are 475 South Carolina Life Insurance Companies who are licensed to sell life insurance in South Carolina, and fourteen of these are domiciled in the state.
Life Insurance is big business in South Carolina and there are roughly 10,000 people who are employed by South Carolina Life Insurance Companies; with a further 12,000 in non-insurance jobs which are directly supported by the life insurance sector.
Overall the residents of South Carolina have $310 billion worth of death benefit cover, and 3 million individual life insurance policies with an average of $63,000 worth of cover per policy holder (one of the lowest averages in the country).
If you look at the amount of insurance that is purchased on a year to year basis then for example you can see that $20 billion worth of individual South Carolina life insurance cover was purchased in 2009.
In terms of the impact that all this has on the economy of South Carolina it is worth considering how much is paid out each years on all of these policies, and in 2009 that figure amounted to $4 billion from surrender values, death benefits, endowments that had matured and dividends from policies that were paid out. In addition, another $630 million was forthcoming from annuity benefits that were paid out. So it is clear that the annual effect on the economy of all these policies is considerable.
Getting Clear on Your Life Insurance Needs – Three Things To Consider…
1/ Make sure that you properly assess how much life insurance you really need
There are several aspects to this. You need to look not only at your current lifestyle and how much it costs. You also need to consider your families future needs if you weren’t around, such as housing, clothing, mortgage payments, education needs etc.
At the very least sit down with a pad and paper and write down all the different expenses that your family might face, as well as the potential uses that the money could be put to in the future.
You may however find that doing the same calculations in a spreadsheet may be helpful, because you may well find that there end up being more expenses to consider then you had previously acknowledged.
2/ Make considered and informed judgements about which life insurance to go for
Make sure that you have considered all the different options that are available to you.
Look at both South Carolina Term Life Insurance Policies as well as South Carolina Whole Life Insurance Policies and get familiar with the differences between them.
In general, Term Life Insurance is cheaper and easier to understand. It has a specified length of term and does not have a savings element.
Whole Life Insurance Policies are more expensive and more complicated to understand. They are however for your whole life, so offer more peace of mind potentially for the long haul. They have a savings element built in, so tend to offer more long term flexibility. But they do cost more, so you need to weigh up the pros and cons of each option before deciding.
3/ Get a wide range of South Carolina Life Insurance Quotes so that you can properly assess the range of policies open to you and the value on offer
By looking at a wide range of quotes and comparing the features and benefits of many different policies you will quickly get a better feel for what constitutes proper value.
Don’t only look at the price though. Make sure that you read the terms and conditions of the different policies carefully, so you can be sure that you actually are comparing like with like.
Remember that you get a ‘Free Look’ period of a minimum of 10 days (and up to 30 days) where you can cancel a life policy without penalty after having signed up for it. So avail yourself of that privilege fully, and be sure to read your policy document through once more even after you have bought the policy.
You will have this insurance most likely for many years to come, so it is well-worth knowing exactly what you have signed up for.
South Carolina Life Insurance – The Details…
When considering the legal and regulatory framework that surrounds life insurance in South Carolina, it is necessary to look at The State Insurance Codes of South Carolina.
These are the statutes that govern how insurance is regulated in South Carolina, and it is useful to know where they are, just in case you ever fall into dispute with your South Carolina Life Insurance Company and want to check what your legal position is.
You can find the South Carolina Insurance Codes here:
It is the South Carolina Department of Insurance that is responsible for overseeing the State Insurance Codes of South Carolina and ensuring that insurance is properly regulated in the state.
This happens at several different levels, both from the perspective of consumers in the Palmetto State to ensure that they are treated fairly, but also to ensure that insurance professionals in the state follow the rules, and that insurance companies in South Carolina are properly regulated.
The South Carolina Department of Insurance website is actually one of the clearer and better structured of the breed, and is worth a look.
South Carolina Life & Accident & Health Insurance Guaranty Association
In the event of an insolvency by a South Carolina Life Insurance Company, it would be the South Carolina Life and Accident and Health Insurance Guaranty Association who would step in to provide some measure of protection to South Carolina Policyholders.
