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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Life insurance is even more vital for soldiers whose family relies on their financial support.

Life insurance may be an afterthought for much of the general public, but for many young soldiers in the battlefields abroad, it’s a vital tool to help protect the financial security of a soldiers’ family and loved ones.

In a recent statement, defense secretary Robert Gates has warned that the U.S. public needs to see evidence that efforts to make a strategic breakthrough in Afghanistan are working if both countries are to continue to suffer the losses of young soldiers. According to Gates “the public expects to see us moving in the right direction.” We could no longer be expected to “tolerate the perception of a stalemate where we are losing young men.”

Stanley McChrystal, former U.S. commander of NATO forces is, however, said to be confident that there will soon be “sufficient progress” to “validate the strategy.” Belying this aspiration is a recent operation to clear insurgents from Marjah and parts of Helmand – both UK and US sources agree this has not gone according to plan, and soldiers on these battlefields may face a higher risk of death on the lines.

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Skydiving is a high-risk activity, which means life insurance companies will charge more.

As extreme pastimes go, mountaineering must be one of the riskiest, and the ultimate achievement for climbers is still conquering the highest peak in the world, Mount Everest. Last month saw yet another attempt on the summit succeed. At thirteen years old, American Jordan Romero has become the youngest climber ever to reach the top of Everest. Jordan, who hails from Big Bear California, reached the summit on May 23^rd, earlier than planned, and the first thing he did was to call his stepmother.  Speaking to her via satellite phone he told her “Mom, I’m calling you from the top of the world”.

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A diagram showing the inner workings of an artery

The rising epidemic in obesity and diabetes in the U.S. is frustrating heart experts in their attempts to reduce heart disease. The message about living a healthy lifestyle and keeping weight down just doesn’t seem to be getting through. It is hoped, however, that looking at our health from a different perspective – in terms of our ‘vascular age’ we might be motivated to make the necessary lifestyle changes to cut our future risk of heart problems.

“There’s a saying that ‘you’re as old as your arteries,’ meaning that the state of your arteries is more important than your actual age in the evolution of heart disease and stroke,” Says Geetha Raghuveer, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Missouri Kansas City School of Medicine. “We found that the state of the arteries in [some] children is more typical of a 45-year-old than of someone their own age.”

How is vascular age calculated?

By taking into account such things as age, sex, cholesterol, blood pressure, whether or not you smoke, as well as any instances of stroke, heart failure or arterial disease, a health professional can tell us the ‘real’ age of our arteries. A 35-year-old might turn out to have the blood vessels of an average 80-year-old — a real shock to the system.

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It’s no surprise that in today’s difficult economy, many people are finding it hard to make room in their budgets for the basic essentials in life. This is no different for business owners trying to do the right thing and maintain their health and life insurance plans for their employees. Life insurance and health plans are costing more and more each year with many plans becoming simply too costly to keep for many smaller businesses. When it comes down to a matter of dollars and cents, many business owners are faced with the decision of cutting life and health insurance coverage for their employees instead of laying off some of those employees to keep costs down.

Economy, Rising Life Insurance Premiums Squeeze Employers’ Bottom Lines

The hard economic conditions that many businesses face now are directly related to stagnating sales and industry slumps that affect a business’s bottom line and operating costs on a weekly basis. The only way that many businesses – especially smaller ones with 2-30 employees – can handle the matter, is to really take a long, hard look at what’s important.

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