Life Insurance
Why is having enough Life insurance protection important?
What is Life Insurance coverage?
Term Life insurance covers you for a fixed period of time, and pays a death benefit to your beneficiary if you are no longer here. Life insurance is a cost-effective way to protect your family and your finances. Should something unforeseen happen to you, it helps to ensure that short- and long-term financial obligations could be met.
If you have a spouse, or a family (domestic partner and/or children), they may rely on you to help keep the household running. Life insurance gives you confidence that your family would be financially prepared without you to handle expenses like:
- Mortgage or rent payments
- Utilities
- Insurance premiums
- Child care/education fees
- Transportation
- Credit card bills
What is Accidental Death and Dismemberment coverage?
Accidental Death and Dismemberment Benefits (AD&D) can provide financial security should a sudden accident take your life or cause you serious loss or harm. This coverage complements your life insurance coverage and helps protect you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
What is Business Travel and Accident insurance?
Business Travel Accident offers you protection while you travel on behalf of your employer. This coverage offers an additional benefit for covered accidents resulting in death or serious injury for employees who are traveling on company business, both domestically and internationally.
Why is Life Insurance so important?
Because you’d want your loved ones to be able to meet financial obligations if something should happen to you prematurely.
If you have a spouse/domestic partner and/or children, they may rely on you to help keep the household running. One third of surviving spouses surveyed do not feel at all financially secure in the year following their spouse’s death, and many used life insurance proceeds to meet basic needs.1 It is important to take steps to make sure your family would be financially prepared if you were no longer there to handle expenses like:
- Food
- Mortgage or rent payments
- Transportation
- Insurance premiums
- Utilities
- Child care/education fees
Covering everyday living expenses and household bills is just one part of the life insurance equation. Without enough life insurance coverage, a premature death is more likely to exert a major or devastating impact on financial security, lifestyle and savings.1 Many families would probably have trouble keeping up with longer term expenses like:
- College tuitionto consider life events that could cause you to need more
- Wedding expenses
- Child or aging parent care
- Retirement
It’s also important to consider life events that could cause you to need more protection as your financial commitments and lifestyle change. Getting married, having children, buying a home — these are all events that could call for adding more life insurance protection to your portfolio.
State of Alaska employees and eligible employees of participating Political Subdivisions are automatically enrolled in Basic Life, Basic Dependent Life, and Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D). This group life plan is offered at no cost to the employee. The amount of your benefit is determined by your bargaining unit.
Additional Supplemental Life Insurance Options: Supplemental Life Insurance, Supplemental AD&D, and Select Life Insurance with AD&D
As a Regular active full-time employee of the State of Alaska and Participating Political Subdivisions, you may choose to enroll for additional Life Insurance for yourself and Supplemental AD&D for you and your family. The cost of these supplemental benefits is paid for by you. You can choose to enroll in Supplemental Life, Supplemental AD&D and/or Select Life with AD&D Insurance.
You must enroll for Optional coverages within 30 days of hire or becoming eligible, or during Open Enrollment.
Select Life and AD&D offers employee-only additional coverage
- Benefit of 1x your earnings to a maximum benefit determined by your bargaining unit. AD&D amount is equal to your Select Life amount.
Supplemental Life and AD&D
- Supplemental employee Life Insurance – choose a flat benefit amount from $10,000 to $300,000
- Supplemental AD&D Insurance – up to $100,000 for employees, additional benefit for spouse and child(ren), consult certificate for coverage details.
What other benefits are included in the plan ?
Your Life benefits include additional benefits such as:
- Grief Counseling – provides you and your family up to five face-to-face or telephone sessions with a licensed grief counselor to help cope with a loss or major event.
- Will Preparation Services – Offers in-person and phone access to a network of plan attorneys to prepare or update a will or power of attorney.
- Estate Resolution Services – Access to egal representation with a MetLife Legal plan attorney both in-person and by phone to help your beneficiaries settle your estate.
- Accelerated Benefit Options – In case of terminal illness, you can get early access to a portion of your life insurance proceeds
- Portability – Provides an opportunity to continue your group term life insurance coverage with MetLife at competitive rates if you retiree or leave the company.
Most Common FAQ's
It may be less expensive than you think. MetLife has designed these group life insurance plans to be an economical way for you to provide for your family. You’ll enjoy competitive group rates, with a wide range of coverage options to choose from. Exact rates can be found in the enrollment materials provided by your employer.
You can update in your benefits portal, by completing a beneficiary form from your employer, or in MetLife’s MyBenefits site.
Everyone is different, but it may be more than you have now. The insurance you need changes as your life changes. For example, getting married, starting a family or buying a home may change the coverage you need. Many people are surprised to learn that they may not have enough life insurance to cover the many expenses their loved ones may face.
To determine the amount of coverage you may need now – go to www.metlifeiseasier.com to calculate how much life insurance may be right for you.
Statement of Health (SOH) is a document that includes a series of questions about your overall health. Strict privacy and confidentiality standards ensure the security of your information. Depending on your plan and amount of coverage requested, you may be asked to complete an SOH form in order for MetLife to evaluate your life insurance application.
Typically, you have 60 days to complete and return the form. After that period, you would need to contact your Benefits Administrator, Benefitfocus.
The Medical Evidence of Insurability (MEOI) level is the maximum amount of insurance coverage you may obtain without having to provide additional medical information. MEOI levels vary by group, plan and coverage type.
MetLife will review the form and generate a response within 10 business days after receiving information. The response will either notify you of the final determination regarding your requested insurance coverage or request additional information.
If you have questions or would like to make changes, please call MetLife Statement of Health Unit at 1-800-638-6420 (prompt 1).
In the event of an insured’s death, you or a family member should notify your employer. Your employer will submit a claim on your behalf to MetLife to start the process. A claim kit will be mailed to you for completion and will specify any additional needed documentation, such as a death certificate. The claim will be reviewed when the employer statement and beneficiary statement has been supplied.
Proceeds are paid to your beneficiary through a tax free death benefit.
The person you choose to receive the life insurance proceeds should something happen to you. It’s possible to have multiple beneficiaries and you can update them regularly should your circumstances or needs change.
To update your beneficiary, go to your benefits portal, or request a form from your employer, or go to MetLife’s MyBenefits site.
Your coverage may be eligible for continuation through portability or conversion. Portability provides an opportunity to continue your group term insurance coverage with MetLife if you coverage terminates due to a qualifying event.
How much Life insurance should you have?
Protect what matters most
Take control of your life insurance coverage so you’ll have the right protection in place for you and your family at all times.
1 National Safety Council . (2012) Injury Facts®, 2012 Edition. Itasca, IL: Author (based on a 2010 US resident population of 309.6 million with 19.9 million reported injuries)