Life insurance can be confusing, given the variety of different categories. Many people wonder about the differences between individual life insurance and group life insurance and whether they should choose one over the other or get both. No one likes to think about a future where either you’re no longer around or when something happened to make you lose your income, so understanding the right life insurance to protect you and your loved ones in either event is essential. 

Here’s what you need to know about the differences between individual life insurance and group life insurance and what they both entail. 

The Differences Between Individual Life Insurance And Group Life Insurance

In order to understand the differences between individual life insurance and group life insurance, you’ll first need to understand each policy on its own.

What Is Individual Life Insurance?

Individual life insurance is as the name implies – a policy that only covers you. This kind of life insurance will continue up to and, in some cases, beyond your retirement. When you get individual life insurance, you’ll have a premium your insurer levies based on several factors, such as your age, your profession, your current health conditions, the sum you want assured, and more. 

For traditional individual life insurance plans, you can expect the premium to stay constant throughout the duration of the policy. Thus, it’s generally recommended that you buy individual life insurance younger than older, as this reduces the premium you’ll need to pay in order to obtain a higher coverage. Additionally, there’s the risk of losing eligibility when you’re older. The earlier, the better with individual life insurance. 

What Is Group Life Insurance?

The majority of employers offer their employees group insurance plans that are partially paid for by the employer. One of the differences between individual life insurance and group insurance is that while you own your policy with individual life insurance, your employer owns it with group. Group insurances are only available to you if you’re eligible, and can be canceled at any time, either by the insurance company or your employer. 

Group life insurance typically has a lower premium than individual life insurance. However, it’s important to note that in most cases, your premium will increase once you hit a certain age. In many cases, this means you can expect your premium to increase every five years, making it so that the older you get, the more you’re paying. Group life insurance generally only lasts as long as your employment, since it’s tied to your employer. 

Thus, one of the key differences between individual life insurance and group life insurance is that while you’ll always have your individual policy, you can’t take your group policy with you once you leave your place of employment that’s providing it to you. 

Is Group Insurance Better Than Individual?

Whenever people talk about differences between things, such as the differences between individual life insurance and group life insurance, they always want to know which one is better. Neither individual nor group policies are necessarily better than the other, but they do have definitive differences.

Some of the differences between individual life insurance and group life insurance are:

• Group insurance is based on a multiple of a salary while individual insurance is based on your needs.
• You own individual life insurance while your group insurance is group-owned.
• Group insurance is tied to the group, so when you leave your place of employment, you can’t take it with you. Individual life insurance stays with you regardless of where you work.
• Your premiums are guaranteed with individual life insurances, but not with group.

Is Group Insurance Cheaper Than Individual?

Yes, group insurance is cheaper than individual insurance because there are more people buying into the plan. Group insurance plans are meant to cover a large number of people, but they offer them all the same benefits. Individual insurance is more, but customizable to your needs.

Individual Vs Group Life Insurance: Which Is Best?

It depends on your needs. In general, it’s recommended that you have both individual and group insurance. That way, you have insurance regardless of your employment status that is best suited to you and also insurance that helps with your financial security even more. Thus, even if your employer offers group insurance, it’s important that you have an individual life insurance policy too. 

Do You Need Life Insurance?

Insurance Unlimited Of Bozeman has a variety of life insurance policies that will meet all of your needs. Life insurance is an important part of protecting you and your family. Contact us today to learn more about the life insurance policies we have available.

Whether your farm is a hobby or your main source of income, obtaining farm insurance can help protect your farm from factors beyond your control. Insurance Unlimited in Bozeman offers an array of farm insurance policies to ensure that you find the one that best suits your needs. Contrary to what one may think, there is no one size fits all when it comes to farm insurance. 

Every farm is different, which is why it’s so important to work with an insurance company like Insurance Unlimited in Bozeman that has a variety of policies, in order to insure that your farm has the insurance it needs. Here’s what you need to know about farm insurance, so that you can have a better idea of how you can benefit from its coverage and what kind of policy would be best suited to you and your farm. 

#1. A Standard Homeowner’s Policy Covers Some Farming Activities

For those who do not have farming as a serious undertaking that they intend to make a profit out of, but rather, see it more as a hobby, some farming activities could potentially be covered by your standard homeowner’s policy. This only applies to small farms and large gardens, and it is important to note that your standard homeowner’s policy likely will not cover any of your farming equipment or machinery. 

#2. Full-Time Farming = Needing A Farm Owner’s Policy 

If you’re not a hobby farmer and you want your farm to be, or it already is, your full-time job, you’ll need to get a farm owner’s policy. This is because you want to ensure that you are doing everything in your power to protect your livelihood and your investments in your farm land, your farm equipment, and everything else involved in it. Farm owner insurance policies generally cover the various structures that are on your property, as well as potential liability issues that could arise, were someone to get injured on your property.

#3. There’s No Standard Farm Insurance Coverage

It’s not at all uncommon for people to hear “farm insurance” and assume that that comes with a bunch of predetermined coverages. The fact of the matter is that there are many, many different types and sizes of farms that can necessitate different types of coverage. As every farm is its own unique entity, you wouldn’t want standard farm insurance with things that you either don’t need or that don’t cover the things you do need protection for. 

Insurance Unlimited in Bozeman will help you build a farm insurance policy that is perfect for your farm and your unique needs. 

#4. You Need Special Coverage For Crops

If your farm is one that grows crops, you’ll need to obtain crop insurance in order to protect them from damages, such as from diseases or droughts or freezes. The last thing you want is to lose a significant portion of your revenue because you don’t have it insured. Crop insurance needs to be purchased separately from personal property insurance.

#5. You Need Special Coverage For Livestock

The same as you need to purchase special crop insurance, you need to purchase special coverage for your livestock in order to ensure that they are protected. Livestock insurance often excludes cases where injury or damage occurs as a result of allowing someone to ride livestock either for free or for a fee. It does, however, protect you from loss of revenue due to your livestock becoming injured or dying, as well as cover the damages that can result from collisions when your livestock is in transit, theft, vandalism, and accidents. 

When it comes to livestock coverage, you generally have a few options.

• Individual Coverage (Scheduled): This is for when you want to schedule your animals individually, which may be the better option for you if you have animals that are valued highly and that you want to have covered up to a certain dollar amount.

• Blanket Coverage (Unscheduled): This is when all of your livestock is covered with the rest of your farm property in a lump sum, which is good for when you do not have individual, highly valued animals. 

It’s always better to be safe than sorry, with any investment. Regardless of whether farming is a hobby for you or if it is your main source of income, farm insurance can go a long way to protect your investments and your livelihood. Insurance Unlimited in Bozeman will help you build the perfect farm insurance policy for you. Contact us today to learn more about farm insurance or to get started on obtaining farm insurance for your farm today!

Driving is dangerous enough without adding distractions in, with people being reckless, road rage, inclement weather, vehicles overdue for maintenance, and more. With distracted driving though, car accidents increase, going up by over 14% since 2014. It’s generally known that if you cause an accident, your insurance rates will go up, but as the amount of distracted drivers increases on the roads, it leads people to wonder if auto insurance will cover distracted driving. Here’s what you need to know about distracted driving, the consequences of it, and how it affects your auto insurance. 

What Counts As Distracted Driving?

When people say “distracted driving”, your mind probably goes right to texting and driving. While it’s true that this is one of, if not the, leading cause of distraction on the road, it’s not the sole reason people get distracted while driving. There are many kinds of distractions that take people’s eyes off of the road. Whether it is eating, drinking, applying makeup, having a lot of commotion in your car, being engrossed in a deep conversation, adjusting your radio, or looking away from the road to see something off to the side, these are all distractions that can result in accidents. 

Distracted driving is categorized as anything that takes your focus away from driving safely, phone or no phone. Even driving drowsy can count, since you’re not able to fully focus on the road, distracted as you are by your tiredness.

The Consequences Of Distracted Driving

The consequences of driving distracted range from being startled and hard braking or swerving to fatal accidents. In 2019, 3,142 people were killed in auto accidents involving distracted drivers. It causes enormous potential for death and injury. It’s estimated that over 28,000 people were injured in crashes from drivers distracted by their cell phones in 2019. This is why almost every state has anti-texting and distracting driving laws. 

How Distracted Driving Impacts Auto Insurance

Depending on the state you live in, there’s a high chance that getting a ticket for distracted driving or being involved in an accident will cause your insurance rates to go up. During the pandemic, distracted driving has increased, with many people taking Zoom calls or texting while driving. While every kind of distraction makes driving less safe, texting is the worst according to the NHTSA, because reading or typing out a text while you drive when you’re going 55mph is the equivalent of going the length of a football field blind. 

If you’re looking down, you won’t see if someone braked hard in front of you or pulled over. With how dangerous distracted driving is, many states and insurance companies include texting and distracted driving as factors when setting your rates. You’ll need to check the laws in your state to know how distracted driving can impact your insurance rates, but it’s best to play it safe, not just for your wallet, but for the safety of you and everyone else on the road, and ensure that you’re driving focused, with no distractions. 

Since distracted driving, especially texting while driving, is so common, many insurance premiums have been rising to account for that. Your auto insurance will also depend on a number of other factors, including your age, your driving history, where you live, and more. People over the age of 65 and between the ages of 18-25 are the most likely to be involved in accidents involving distracted driving. Your credit score plays a factor too – low credit scores mean paying more while higher scores are vice versa. 

Ways To Avoid Distracted Driving

There are so many distractions on the road, and with how addictive phones are, this only increases that. Preventing distracted driving is an absolute essential, though, for the safety of everyone on the road. Some of the ways you can help yourself focus on the road include:

• Setting your phone to Do Not Disturb while driving
• Picking out your music before getting on the road
• Setting your GPS before you go
• Putting your phone out of reach
• Not eating or drinking while driving
• Not reaching for things while driving
• Installing an app to disable your phone while driving
• Limiting the amount of activity in your car
• Pull off the road if you’re sleepy
• Practice defensive driving
• Limit how many passengers are in your car

These are just some of the ways you can limit distractions on the road. Driving is dangerous enough as it is – don’t make it even more so by driving distracted! Be safe out there – drive focused.

Auto Insurance Policies For Your Protection

Insurance Unlimited Of Bozeman offers auto insurance policies to meet your needs. Auto insurance is essential for many reasons, which is why we offer a number of different policies to choose from. If you’d like to learn more about the importance of auto insurance, preventing distracted driving, or how to find the right policy for you, don’t hesitate to contact us at Insurance Unlimited today!