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The following excerpt is from Mark J. Kohler and Randall A. Luebke’s book The Business Owner’s Guide to Financial Freedom. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | IndieBound

Every day, life insurance companies pay death benefits to the beneficiaries of their policies, providing them with needed and certainly welcome funds. In essence, life insurance provides leverage: You pay a relatively small amount of money to the insurance company in the form of a “premium,” and the insurance company will provide a guaranteed payout of a relatively large amount of money upon the death of the insured.

While there are thousands of different life insurance plans available, they all fall into two categories: term and permanent insurance. Term, as the name implies, provides a benefit for a fixed period of time; 10 years, 20 years and so on. Permanent insurance is in place for life.

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