The relative health of insurance companies has created a unique market climate that can mean big savings on your life insurance policy.

Those insurers who are weak because they put policyholder dollars at risk in bad investments are raising their premiums. Yet others who are healthy are actually offering real deals.

The irony is this is completely reversed from the historical pattern. In the past, weak insurers typically offered the cheapest premiums and it got more expensive as you shopped stronger companies. Today, however, it's haphazard and that traditional wisdom may not hold.

The Wall Street Journal reports one person was looking for a life insurance policy at 56. The customer was able to get a premium quote for the same coverage that was half of the initial quote from another company. That's a big savings!

Higher quality companies may offer lower premiums because of today's unique market conditions! So it's more important than ever to shop your life insurance far and wide.

Remember, the best option for most people is term insurance -- a plain vanilla policy that you buy for a set number of years where the premium stays the same over those years. The goal of this insurance is to replace your income. So you might buy it until your children are grown or until you reach retirement age, for example.