what is joint life insurance 
joint life insurance covers two people rather than one person while joint life insurance typically covers a married couple it may also be used by others such as domestic partners or two partners in a business joint life can be term or permanent insurance 5these policies can be structured in several ways a first to die policy pays when either person dies this might be useful for a young family where one person works outside the home and the other is a stay at home parent if one or the other of them dies the family could face financial hardship either because it no longer has money coming in from the working spouse or because the survivor must now pay someone to do the work previously done by the stay at home partner however two separate individual policies could serve the same purpose as a joint policy the other type of joint life insurance is second to die this policy does not pay out to the policy s beneficiaries until both policyholders are dead joint life policies provide a number of benefits since the premiums are based on insuring two lives rather than one they are usually less expensive than buying two separate policies they are also useful when one spouse has an underlying medical condition that would prevent that partner from obtaining coverage on their own though joint life policies may be less expensive than two individual policies they also come with additional risks including how to manage the policy if the couple decides to divorce 6