Purchase life insurance online. Best Life Insurance Companies Of 2018, Who You Should Choose Why!

I t’s very common for consumers to not check the ratings of a life insurance company before they actually purchase their life insurance policy. They don’t even think of comparing the best life insurance companies before they make a buying decision. Best life insurance.

If you’re planning on paying for a policy for the next 20 or 30 years, don’t you want to know how strong the ratings are for the life insurance company you’re handing your money to? One would think so.

Yet people don’t do it. It doesn’t take much time to do some research and find out how solid the insurance company is. A simple Google search will yield you a wealth of information.

These are only a few of the companies out there, but we want to make buying life insurance as quick as possible.

Top Ten Life Insurance Companies in the United States

Any best-of list is, by its nature, subjective, and that goes for my list of life insurance companies, too. There are so many really good insurance companies out there, there will always be varying opinions about which ones are the best.

Each company on this list is top level and has great financial and customer service ratings, but that doesn’t mean other companies aren’t rated as well, too.

So, if you run a set of quotes the least expensive company on your list doesn’t show up on this list, don’t necessarily count them out. Instead, look at their ratings and customer service reviews to see how they compare with the companies on this list.

That being said, if you’re looking for a great company to partner with for your coverage, our team here at sat down and came up with this list of companies for the United States. We think any of these companies offer a great place to start.

HavenLife

HavenLife has made a big splash in the life insurance marketplace in a very short period of time.

While they are still considered a startup company they are fully backed by MassMutual which has more than 150 years of history in the insurance industry and is currently among the highest rated insurance providers.

A lot of companies offer great coverage. What sets Haven Life apart is their instant coverage which is available without a medical exam.

To qualify you do have to be in good health and younger than 45 years old, but even if you do not qualify instantly you can still go through the normal underwriting policy to receive coverage quickly.

Haven Life offers only term life insurance, and they’re able to offer it faster and with the least amount of hassle as any company in the market.

Banner Life

Banner Life shows up in many lists of top life insurance carriers. They are considered the top company to get coverage for anyone who is classified as high risk. That’s a huge deal in the insurance industry.

Banner Life has done considerable work learning how to best insure and rate individuals with any medical conditions or high risk occupations/activities. This is especially true of anyone who is older.

Banner offers term life insurance for people up to 95 years of age. Compare that to most companies, which cut off term life insurance and 65 or 75, and you can see why they are so highly thought of in the senior community.

Banner Life has been around for almost 80 years and has a stellar track record of caring for its clients. With top grades from all the ratings agencies, you can’t go wrong with Banner Life if they show up as the best value for your dollar.

AIG is one of the largest life insurance companies in the world. This allows them to offer lower rates to people who are on the edge of pushing into a more expensive rate class.

This means if you are little overweight you may get better rates with AIG than with other carriers.

AIG has a strong reputation when it comes to financial ratings. They’ve earned at least an A rating from all four of the insurance rating companies.

Prudential

Prudential is one of the most well-known insurance companies in the U.S. Along with being a highly rated company and more than a century old, they have made a name for themselves for offering the best rates for those who use chewing tobacco.

This is because they do not rate chewing tobacco users in the same class as smokers, allowing chewing tobacco users to save thousands of dollars over the life of the policy.

Just like the other companies on the list, Prudential receives at least an A rating from all four major rating agencies.

Brighthouse By MetLife

MetLife, now known as Brighthouse Financial, has one of the most recognizable mascots in Snoopy. They offer pretty much every type of life insurance product in the market.

MetLife is considered one of the top providers in the world with more than 140 years of history and no less than a AA- rating from all the top insurance rating companies.

Voya Financial

Voya is a new name in the marketplace, but the insurance coverage it offers had a long history as ING Life before it became part of Voya in the early 2010s.

Voya serves about 13 million individual and business clients. Their insurance policies include term, whole, universal, and survivorship plans.

Voya’s ratings are all A- or higher, and the company has more than $519 billion in total assets under management.

Mutual of Omaha

Mutual of Omaha has been serving the life insurance market for more than 100 years. This company is great at offering top rates on life insurance policies for seniors.

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Mutual of Omaha has an impeccable set of ratings and a great reputation for customer service and paying off claims.

Genworth

Genworth has been doing business since 1871 and sells insurance in more than 25 countries across the globe.

They have continued to have top ratings!

New York Life

New York Life is one of the most well-known life insurance companies and has a stellar reputation for working with employer-provided plans.

The company has been around for more than 170 years and receives top ratings from all four carriers, including A++ and AAA from Finch.

Transamerica

Transamerica started its operations more than 100 years ago and it offers term life insurance for people up to 58 years old.

Transamerica has grown into a big-time financial and insurance provider with ratings of at least AA- from all the rating agencies.

Other Life Insurance Companies To Consider

In addition to these individual company reviews above, you should know advantages and disadvantages to using other brokers, like SelectQuote, as well. You may have heard of them from the radio or other advertisements, but they may not be your best choice.

Best Life Insurance Companies

When you’re looking for the best life insurance company, there are several factors that you should look at, and it can be an overwhelming search to get the best policy. When you’re investing in life insurance, you need to do the proper about of research.

The list I’ve compiled isn’t necessarily “the best life insurance companies for EVERYONE.” These are only a list of some of the best insurance companies for most people.

Everyone is different and everyone has different life insurance needs, which means that these companies might not necessarily offer the best choices for you.

To find the best company for your needs, it often helps to think about it from a different perspective: By a category that describes your situation.

The Top Life Insurance Companies – By Category

There are more than 850 life insurance companies in the United States. Finding the best insurance company for your needs can be difficult.

There are several factors to consider:

No life insurance company is perfect for everyone. It can be overwhelming when you begin your search.

While people who are in good health can pretty much use the form on this page and find a good match, people who are “ high risk ” can have more trouble.

So here’s a list of common categories matched with the companies that we have found are most likely to be able to help.

Category: Seniors

Headquarters: Omaha, Nebraska.

With over 3.5 million individual product customers in 2014, Mutual of Omaha is one of the most well-known and respected insurance companies in the field. Founded in 1909 they have had a few years to become good at what they do.

Through the last 100 years Mutual of Omaha has developed policies that work well for most elderly customers. Mutual of Omaha is an excellent place to start for seniors to look for life insurance.

If you are between the ages of 45 – 85 seeking life insurance coverage, you cannot be rejected. You will not have to take a medical exam or answer ANY medical questions, and they can’t reduce any of your benefits due to your health or age.

Category: Overweight

Headquarters: Richmond, Virginia.

Genworth is considered to be the leader in providing life insurance for customers that are typically classified as “overweight.” Their policies have a generous view on what is considered to be “overweight” or “obese.” Their liberal standards are important in receiving a preferred-plus rating in the underwriting of the policies, which leads to lower monthly premiums.

With Genworth applicants are allowed a few more pounds before being considered overweight for their height.

Another reason to choose Genworth is their customer service. In 2015 Genworth won the DALBAR Life & Long Term Care Service for customer service award. Learn more about this company at our Genworth Trust Life Insurance Company Review.

Category: 5 – Year Term

Headquarters: St. Paul, Minnesota.

Minnesota Life boasts an impressive $1 trillion in life insurance protection and is highly rated from all independent agencies.

Minnesota Life is also one of the few life insurance companies that offer a 5-year term policy. These types of policies are great for short-term coverage and can help you save money with their lower premiums.

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A 5-year term policy is popular among young married couples who want to cover death expenses and can’t afford a higher coverage.

Category: Universal Life

Our Pick: Protective Life

Headquarters: Birmingham, Alabama

Protective Life is becoming known as the best life insurance company for universal life policies. Universal life policies are relatively new to the insurance industry. These policies are created to last throughout your life, like a whole policy, but with more flexibility built in.

Protective Life’s universal life policies offer several ways for you to customize the plan to fit your needs. They allow you to adjust coverage amounts and premiums of the plan and make changes to the savings portion of the account.

Protective Life has competitive prices compared to other companies that offer universal life policies.

Category: No Medical Exam

Our Pick: American National Insurance Company (ANICO)

Headquarters: Galveston, Texas.

The Moody family established ANICO in 1905, and the family still plays an active role in the company. ANICO was named to Forbes’ “100 Most Trustworthy Companies” list in 2009.

ANICO offers a wide variety of products and policies, but they specialize in policies that don’t require a medical exam or health questions. They offer several different policies with varying coverage amounts, premiums, and terms.

Their Legacy Whole Life insures people ages 50 to 80 and offers guaranteed approval with a fixed premium. These policies are great for people who need life insurance immediately, or do not have the time to go through a medical exam. In most cases you can be approved with a policy in less than 20 minutes with ANICO.

Premiums are going to be higher when a medical exam is not required. They also have tighter limits on the amount you can be insured for. You also must be careful of a two-year graded death benefit. This means that if the insured person died within the first two years of the policy, the company will pay 110% of premiums paid, but not the payout of the policy.

Category: Cancer Survivors

Headquarters: Newark, New Jersey.

Prudential is famous for covering several “high-risk” groups that most other insurance companies won’t. With an estimated 14 million cancer survivors in the United States, Prudential has become one of the leaders in providing life insurance for cancer survivors.

Although your premium will be higher, Prudential offers great rates for cancer survivors. The type of cancer and the length of remission will play a huge part in the premium and coverage amount they offer.

Category: Tobacco Users

Headquarters: Frederick, Maryland.

Banner Life is an excellent company for almost any type of policy, but especially for tobacco users. Most life insurance companies don’t specify between the types of tobaccos when underwriting a policy.

Banner Life is different. They offer “preferred tobacco” and “standard tobacco” depending on the type and frequency. Banner Life has become specialists in life insurance policies for smokers and tobacco users for lower rates.

Yes, you are still going to be paying a higher premium than someone that does not use tobacco, but Banner will help you get a lower price than almost all other companies.

Category: Diabetics

In the early 2000’s American General became a part of the larger and well-known American International Group (AIG). American General insures more than 88 million consumers worldwide, but we chose them because of the excellence in serving the diabetic community.

American General is great at serving several groups of “high-risk” applicants, but specifically those seeking life insurance with type 2 diabetes. Once again, anyone with diabetes is going to pay more than someone without it, but American General will help give you a lower premium.

With American General you can also take advantage of their accelerated death benefit rider that lets you receive some of the benefits while you are alive.

Identify The Safest Life Insurance Companies – First And Foremost

If you want to find out some information about your potential insurance company, here are a few things you’ll want to consider.

What the guaranty fund covers is if something did happen to your insurance company, and it became insolvent. The state fund would kick in and pay the life insurance death benefit.

But, for this to happen, verify the caps on payout limits are large enough to take care of your life insurance policy. If you are purchasing some sort of policy which has a cash value build up, make sure the increasing amount is covered, too.

This a last resort option, of course, as the process can be a bear. Don’t expect a quick turnaround on getting your money.

The second place you can get information is visiting A.M. Best (note: Fitch, Moody’s and S&P also rank insurance companies, but more on this below). A. M. Best is one of the most recognized companies who rates the financial strength of all the different life insurance companies currently in business.

How long have they been around?

Life ins policy

In fact, they’ve been around over 100 years, so they are definitely considered the leader in this space.

If your company is rated A, A+, or A++, it’s on solid ground. If your company is rated B or worse, it’s time to move on.

Below you’ll find more about A.M. Best’s rating scale.

How Do A.M. Best Insurance Ratings Scale Work, Exactly?

When you’re looking for the best company, one important thing to consider is their A.M Best rating.

A++, A+, A, and A- these are the highest ratings a company can get. If you find a company in this category, you don’t have to worry about their financial stability.

B++, B+, B, and B- this is the next highest category. These companies still have a great financial foundation and you don’t have to worry about these companies going bankrupt.

C++ and C+ there are only two ratings in the C category. These companies tend to offer very straightforward coverage with no additions. This is when you should do a lot of research with these companies, you’ll start to enter the gray area.

D buyers beware of any company in this category. These are the carriers who don’t meet the requires of A.M. Best. I highly recommend not buying a plan from any company below a C.

If you don’t know where to look to get up to date ratings and reviews of all the best life insurance companies, look no further. In the table below, you will see a comprehensive list of all the life insurance companies.

Moody’s Ratings Explanations

As mentioned above, Moody’s is another rating agency who monitors the creditworthiness of an insurance company. Here’s what their table look like:

You’ll see it looks and feels a lot like A.M. Best’s, which is helpful to you so you can compare apples to apples as best you can.

Types of Life Insurance

Part of deciding which insurance company is best for your needs and your budget is determining what kind of coverage you need. There are several different kinds of coverage, and each kind has pros and cons. It’s important that you decide which kind of life insurance plan is going to fit your needs.

Term Life Insurance

The first, and the most common, type is term life. A term policy comes with an expiration date, usually 10 to 30 years from the date of purchase.

Once that expiration date has passed, you will no longer have insurance coverage. If you want to have life insurance after your term policy has expired, you will need to buy a new plan.

Because these are only temporary forms of coverage, they are much more affordable than other options. They also work well if you’d like to have a lot of coverage while you’re young and have young children but will not need that coverage in 20 or 30 years.

Universal Life Insurance

Universal life is similar to whole life in that you can keep the policy for the rest of your life. But universal life is more flexible than whole life. With a universal policy, you can change the premium and coverage amount without having to get a new policy.

There are several other sub-types of universal life insurance plans that you can choose from guaranteed universal life insurance, variable life insurance, and indexed universal life insurance. All of these plans are pretty similar, but there are a few unique distinctions that set them apart.

Guaranteed Universal Life

Guaranteed universal life insurance will give you lower premiums versus some other permanent coverage, and they also have flexible premiums. You can change your premiums (within reason), as your finances change.

Indexed Universal Life

Indexed universal life insurance is very similar, but it gives you the chance to get higher cash value investment options. The cash value component of the plan will be indexed to the market. There is a guaranteed floor, which means that regardless of how poorly the market is doing, you’ll still get a guaranteed return.

Variable Universal Life

Variable universal life insurance is going to give you the least amount of flexibility in how much you can change your premiums, but it will also give you the highest cap on how much growth you can get from the cash value. On the flip side, they also have the chance of getting the least amount of return as well.

Whole Life Insurance

The next type of coverage is whole life insurance. As you can guess from the name, whole life insurance policies are a permanent type of coverage. These plans are never going to expire. As long as you pay the monthly premiums for the plan, you will have life insurance protection.

These are an excellent option for anyone who doesn’t want to worry about having to reapply for coverage in the future, but that advantage is going to come with a higher price.

One of the unique advantages of whole life insurance coverage is that it builds cash value inside of the policy. The longer that you have the plan, the more value it becomes. You can use this cash value to pay the monthly premiums or to secure a loan for something else, like a car or a home renovation.

No Exam Life Insurance

One unique type of life insurance coverage is no exam policy. No exam policies let you get life insurance protection without being required to take the medical exam. These plans don’t work for everyone, but it’s something that you should be aware of when you’re looking for the best plan.

With these plans, you’ll be able to get insurance protection much faster, but they are going to be notably more expensive than a plan that requires a medical exam because your insurance company does not know what risk it’s taking by issuing your policy.

To get a free analysis of quotes from the best life insurance companies, use the form on this page or call us at 8888-836-7071. We are here to help you get the cheapest term quote from the best insurance companies.