Term life insurance is sold to provide temporary protection. The benefit is payable only if the policyholder dies within a specified period of time.

People use temporary life insurance as a means of enhancing their permanent life insurance protection. It provides additional life insurance protection during their working years to ensure the lifestyle of their dependents in the event of their untimely death, to cover certain indebtedness, such as a home mortgage, or to provide funds for a college education for a dependent.

Ultimate Term is a unique term insurance product. It allows the agent to custom-design a policy to fit the insured's needs. Level, increasing, or decreasing coverage patterns, or any combination of the three, may be selected*. This allows the agent to ascertain the client's needs, and then fill those needs with exactly the right solution.

Level insurance coverage can be created for any length of time up to, but not exceeding, the insured's 75th birthday. An increasing insurance pattern can be selected as an "inflation fighter" or just to meet future needs. A decreasing death benefit can be selected to cover a mortgage or any other type of loan. Any combination of increasing, decreasing or level insurance can be created with Ultimate Term by using a special needs analysis.

Any coverage period may be selected from one year to sixty years, subject to an overall policy length to the insured's age 75.

Ultimate Term uses an indeterminate premium-pricing concept to offer UTUIA policyholders the lowest possible premium at issue. Premiums are guaranteed for the first full year. After the first policy year, we may charge the same or more than the current premium, subject to a guaranteed maximum premium.

Unlike traditional term insurance policies, Ultimate Term may produce cash surrender values, particularly policies with long durations and level premium patterns. Since premiums are spread evenly over a long period of time, the insured is paying a higher premium in the early years than is actually necessary to fund the policy. These excess premiums are used to fund mortality in later years when mortality is much higher, thereby eliminating rapidly increasing premiums in later years.

If the insured elects to surrender the policy during the coverage period, there may be a surrender value. This surrender value is simply a build up of unused premiums. One further option is available in this instance. If the insured desires to discontinue premium payments at some point where a surrender value is available, but wishes to retain the insurance protection under a non-forfeiture option, he or she may do so by using the surrender value to purchase a reduced paid-up amount of insurance. This reduced amount of insurance is only continued to the end of the initial term period and not for the insured's lifetime.

*A level term version of this policy is available to residents of Washington State.