Millions of Americans give their financial support to charitable organizations every year. In addition to donating to good causes during their lifetimes, there are ways for the philanthropic to continue to help a charity of choice, even after death. In fact, any type of life insurance can be altered or designed with this in mind.

Using Life Insurance as a Charitable Gift

One of the simplest ways is to ‘gift’ a life insurance policy. Doing so will mean that the charity receives the total amount of the policy proceeds upon the death of the holder, and further advantages are that it will substantially reduce estates taxes and income taxes. So the not-for-profit organization receives the full benefit of the policy.

Making the life insurance policy a gift will only cost slightly more for the holder (and the additional premium amount can be partly claimed back in tax over the ensuing years). Gifting a policy may be a good way of disbursing monies from a redundant life insurance policy; where the finance which was required and planned for when the policy was taken out is no longer needed.

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