Term life insurance is most similar to the commodity concept. You can shop for it like you would for a can of beans or a car. It used to be harder because you had to go to various agents or brokers and hope they’d find you the lowest prices.

Now you can go to an online service such as lifeinsure.com and access the database directly and even anonymously and get online life insurance quotes. Instead of making a bunch of calls or seeing people in person you type in your birth date, a few other questions including how long you’d like the term life insurance to last (10, 15, 20 or 30 years) and then voila, you get to see the whole range of quotes from the life insurance database in order of price. If you looked at 20 year term and want now to see 30 year term, you just go back and recalculate. All this in about 30 seconds instead of hours of calls or visits – the power of the net!

If you see something you like, click the button to apply and you’re off to the races.

Shopping for permanent life insurance such as universal life or whole life is a little more complex. These policies last for a lifetime and thus are more valuable, requiring premiums that reflect that lifetime value. These require the assistance of an expert. They are usually put together in consultation with an agent or broker. The web can be of assistance here as well for these kinds of life insurance quotes. You can get educated and read up on how these plans work. Also, use an agent or broker who serves more than one or a few companies. A comprehensive online insurance agency such as lifeinsure.com has advisors who are not only experts on term life insurance but on all the types of permanent life insurance including whole life, universal life and the special type of permanent life insurance, survivorship life insurance, that is used for estate planning and special needs children situations.