About Clearly Whole

What this site is

Clearly Whole is a small reference library about life insurance terminology, with a focus on the structural differences between term policies and whole life policies. It exists because the comparison is almost always written as a sales argument, and a reader who just wants to know what paid-up, face amount, non-guaranteed column, or contingent beneficiary means has to wade through the argument to find the definition.

Who it's for

• People who have been handed a proposal or an illustration and want to understand the document before discussing it.
• People comparing two policy structures and trying to work out which attributes are contractual and which are projections.
• Anyone who wants the vocabulary straight before talking to a licensed agent, a financial professional, or an attorney.

What this site is not

These pages are reviewed reference material, not professional advice. We do not tell you which policy to buy, how much coverage to carry, whether to keep or drop a policy you already have, who to name as a beneficiary, or what any of it means for your taxes or your estate. Those are decisions that depend on facts about you that a web page cannot know, and in most states they can only properly be discussed with someone licensed to discuss them.

We also do not publish prices or quotes. Premiums are set by individual insurers under state regulation and vary with the applicant; any number presented here as "typical" would be misleading, so we describe what drives a premium instead of inventing one.

Corrections

If a definition on this site is wrong or has gone out of date, we would rather fix it than defend it.