Life Insurance in Colorado

Coverage through Valor Life Benefits is available to Colorado residents. The Colorado Division of Insurance, part of the Department of Regulatory Agencies, regulates the companies and agents that sell coverage in the state. It answers consumer questions, investigates complaints and keeps a public license lookup for agents.

What the Colorado Division of Insurance Tells Buyers

The Division's life insurance and annuities page walks through the main policy types in plain terms:

• Term life is the simplest policy and has no cash value. If the premium stops, the policy lapses, and nothing is refunded for premiums already paid. Some term policies offer a return of premium feature, and the Division suggests making sure you understand the policy you are buying.
• Whole life builds cash value, and the premium is fixed for as long as the policy is in force and premiums are paid as agreed.
• Universal life gives more control over premiums and allows the death benefit to be changed at certain times. Whole life and universal life both allow loans or withdrawals against the cash value.

How Much Life Insurance to Buy in Colorado

The Division suggests starting with your family's yearly expenses, allowing for inflation, and multiplying by the number of years your dependents would need support. Add the future bills you want covered, such as a mortgage payoff or college. It notes that some advisors recommend coverage of two to six times the policyholder's annual income, adjusted for the number of dependents, their ages and their needs.

The Division describes term coverage as protection for people who depend on you that generally ends by the time children are grown and independent, often when the policy owner is ready to retire.

Questions that help set the number: how long children will stay at home, what schooling might come next, and whether an adult in the household would need time and training to go back to work.

Lost Policies and Unclaimed Benefits in Colorado

The Division hosts a Colorado life insurance policy locator page for the NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator. Requests are encrypted, participating insurers compare them with their policyholder records, and companies have 90 days to research each inquiry. In the locator's first year it matched about 5.7 million dollars in benefits to Colorado beneficiaries.

Money an insurer cannot deliver is reported to the state. Colorado's State Treasurer lists it on the Great Colorado Payback site.

Coverage for Colorado Residents

Coloradans can choose level term coverage, whole life, final expense for end-of-life bills, mortgage protection and IUL. The other state pages cover Texas, South Carolina and Michigan.