What is credit life insurance?

Credit life insurance pays off your debt if you die or if your co-borrower dies. Sometimes it also will pay off the debt if one of you becomes disabled. It is usually not a good deal, compared with a good term life insurance policy. It is often much more expensive; term life insurance can provide the same protection and give your survivors much more flexibility in how the settlement is spent.

Brenda Procter, M.S.,  Consumer and Family Economics, College of Human Environmental Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia

If you'd like to learn more about this and other personal finance topics, the University of Missouri offers 'Personal & Family Finance,' a correspondence course, through the Center for Distance and Independent Study (800-609-3727). Information about this course is available at http://cdis.missouri.edu/CourseInfo/DetailCourseInfo.asp?1985.

Last update: Tuesday, July 05, 2005