Term life insurance is pure insurance protection. It has no cash value and therefore it is quite affordable compared to whole life insurance. Term life insurance covers for a specific term of time such as 10 years, 15 years, 20 years or 30 years. Instead of purchasing for specific number of years, it is also possible to purchase the term life insurance for the term until you reach age 65 or 70.

Term life insurance is a good choice if you are relatively young and God forbid, if you were to die soon, your family would be left with lots of debts. What if you have purchased the house, and if you pass away, who would pay mortgage installments for your spouse? If you had purchased term life insurance, your spouse can use the death benefit to pay off the debts. Term life insurance is also useful for living expenses for your spouse, education expenses for your children etc.

Whether to purchase 10 year, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years depends upon your long term as well as short term debts, how much money your spouse will need for living expenses, how much money your children will need until they are financially independent. As your need changes based on the life events such as marriage, child birth, grown up children etc, you should also periodically review your life insurance needs to protect your loved ones. When your children are grown and may not be financially dependent upon you, you may not need as much life insurance. If you have young children, and you have many liabilities such as mortgage, you should buy higher coverage term life insurance.

When you buy a term life insurance policy, such as 20 years life insurance policy for $500,000 death benefit, you are guaranteed same premiums for next 20 years, irrespective of change of your age or health. Insurance company is required to insure you for next 20 years, as long as you pay premiums on time. On the other hand, you are at liberty to discontinue your insurance at any time. Many companies will also be willing to insure you beyond initial guaranteed term, but the premiums would be so high that it becomes impractical to continue beyond initial term. However, as it is still guaranteed coverage beyond initial term, you may want to continue your insurance if your health has changed dramatically. In that case, if you try to buy a new policy, premiums may be too high or you may be uninsurable. On the other hand, if you are still in good health, you may be better off buying a new policy.

When you submit the request for life insurance quotes, please be honest and provide accurate answers to the best of your knowledge. If insurance company finds out later that you lied on the application, your coverage may be cancelled or your death benefit may not be payable. The quotes you receive may be the best estimation based on the information you provide, but final premiums can only be determined once the application goes through underwriting. If final premiums are not acceptable to you, you can always decline to buy the policy. You don't even necessarily have to send premium with initial application.

As part of underwriting, medical examination is almost always required by most companies. Insurance company would be glad to schedule an exam at the place and date/time convenient to you. And you don't have to pay any money for that. It is usually performed by a nurse or paramedic and covers your height, weight, medical history, and blood and urine testing. By doing the blood and urine tests, the insurance company looks for specific medical problems.

Many US life insurance companies sell life insurance only to US citizens, while most require at least Permanent Resident Card (also known as "Green Card"). However, companies like Prudential offer coverage to non-US citizens staying on USA on a long-term non-immigrant visa as well such as H1/L1 workers, H4/L2 dependents, Adjustment of Status (I-485) applicants, international students studying in USA. Depending upon the countries they travel to (countries are divided into A, B, C, D, E, etc classes depending upon the risk), duration of travel, frequency of travel etc, premiums may be higher. But it is still possible to get insurance for such people.