One of the great strengths of life insurance is its ability to meet different goals. What do you want to do with these savings? Do you build a heritage? Get a pension supplement? Saving for a real estate investment, paying for your children’s education? Or prepare your estate? The various media at your disposal – funds in euros or UC units – will give you access to a wide range of assets (shares, bonds, SCPI, OPCI, etc.), allowing life insurance to quickly adapt to your needs your risk appetite. Secondly, life insurance benefits from a very favorable tax regime in the event of withdrawal, particularly after eight years of detention but also in the event of a transfer, one of its major assets.
First payment is required at the opening of the contract. Then, the rate of payments is free, but they can be subject to minimum investment, often reduced in online banks. This investment also offers great flexibility: you choose between scheduled payments, or free installments, according to the desired pace and your savings capacity.
Depending on the media chosen, funds in dollars, the performance will be guaranteed in the first case, and subject to market fluctuations for the part invested in units of the account whose proportion and characteristics will vary according to your risk profile.
Life insurance is not necessarily a risky investment. Life insurance can be adapted to many situations depending on your investor profile (cautious, balanced, dynamic, or offensive). For the funds in euros, the capital is guaranteed (after deduction of the expenses borne by the subscriber), and the insurer returns an annual rate of return. The units of account allow you to diversify your investment, but the capital is not guaranteed, and the amounts invested are subject to capital loss. The level of risk varies depending on the medium chosen.
Finally, you have the option to opt for free and autonomous management, with the possibility of being accompanied by a choice of media and the subsequent modification of the allocation. You can also prefer a mandate, which allows you to entrust your contract management to experts.
The beneficiary clause refers to the person or persons who will receive the capital in the event of death. This clause, therefore, requires special attention to avoid any ambiguity when you die. Know first that you have real freedom in establishing this clause: designation of the beneficiary or beneficiaries, setting order of priority between them, and sharing capital between them. Your spouse and your children are not the only ones who can claim it. You can add an external beneficiary to your immediate family circle.
Finally, you can change the beneficiaries during the life of the contract, provided that the previous beneficiary has not formally accepted his appointment. His agreement will be necessary to change the clause.
You are free to withdraw at any time. But earnings remain subject to income tax and social security contributions when they have not yet been removed. We invite you to go to the tenth question to know the precise modalities.
In addition, it should be noted that this withdrawal may lead to specific costs, particularly in the context of exit penalties for a certain amount.
These two types of contracts are often confused. Yet their modalities and goals are different.
What is commonly referred to as death insurance belongs to pensions. It provides for the payment of a lump sum to the beneficiary designated by the insured on his death. If the risk does not occur, the contributions paid are not repaid and therefore lost.
On the other hand, life insurance makes it possible to build up savings, value them, and transmit them. Therefore, you can freely recover all or part of your capital as indicated above. In the event of death, the valued savings are paid back to the beneficiaries designated in the contract.
Depending on where you open your life insurance policy, fees may vary. For example, some intermediaries apply payment fees that others, like online banks, do not charge. Distributors may also choose to charge or not to arbitrate. In the same way, the annual management fees vary according to the supports (fund in euros or UC) and according to the establishment.
Life insurance is not transferable from one company to another, which is one of the differences with most other products (PEA, securities account, etc.)
If you are dissatisfied with your contract (disappointing performance, lack of flexibility of terms, high fees), you must cancel your current contract and open a new one in another institution. But beware of the tax consequences: possible taxation and loss of tax precedence. So other more flexible solutions may need to study the tax impact: make partial withdrawals and put the sums on a contract more suited to your goals. Or simply keep his contract as is and make future payments on a new contract.
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