The 2024 Life Insurance Barometer Study by LIMRA reveals that about 42% of Americans feel they need more life insurance. This is a significant number of people who lack financial safety nets for their families in case of unfortunate events. If you’ve been avoiding life insurance because you think it’s too expensive, too complicated, or unnecessary, you should know that term life insurance is the most affordable and straightforward type of life insurance out there. If you’re under 40 and healthy, you can likely get a 20 or 30-year term life coverage for less than $100 a month.
So, who are the top term life insurance companies? Let’s dive in.
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Bestow: Best Overall
Bestow is a digital-first term life insurance provider with a super quick application process. They claim you can apply for coverage in less than five minutes. Their underwriting process is entirely algorithm-driven, and they may approve policies as large as $1.5 million without a medical exam. Coverage starts at $100,000, and applications are open to age 60. Even for high coverage amounts, premiums start as low as $11 a month. -
Guardian: Best for HIV Patients
Guardian has over 160 years of experience and millions of customers, including HIV patients. They offer term and whole life policies for these patients through a life insurance agent. Guardian offers various riders to customize your policy. Most customers can convert a term policy to a whole life policy within the first five years. -
Pacific Life: Best for Conversion Options
Pacific Life stands out for its large product selection. It offers different types of term life insurance policies with more features than a basic term life insurance policy typically offers. The Promise Term product includes a $10,000 policy for every child under 18, an acceleration benefit if you become terminally ill, or a premium waiver if you become totally disabled. -
MassMutual: Best for Financial Stability
MassMutual focuses on providing affordable coverage that grows with you. They offer accelerated death benefits for terminally ill clients and a premium waiver for anyone who becomes disabled. Policies start at $100,000, and many are available up to age 75. -
New York Life: Best for Riders
New York Life is a financially stable company that offers term and permanent life insurance policies. They offer a level-premium term with coverage options of 10, 15, or 20 years and a yearly renewable term that renews each year and is available to applicants up to age 75. -
Ladder: Best for No Medical Exam
Ladder is unique for its flexibility for no-exam applicants — you can get a death benefit as high as $3 million without an exam if you’re in excellent health and have no red flags in your medical history. -
State Farm: Best If You Want to Work With an Agent
State Farm offers permanent life insurance coverage, such as universal life insurance and whole life insurance. It also places much greater emphasis on the human element in life insurance shopping and sales.
Policygenius is an online insurance broker. It’s not limited to life insurance rates — you can also find homeowners insurance, renters insurance, auto insurance, disability insurance, and pet insurance.
Term life insurance is much more affordable than permanent life insurance. Although the exact difference varies by policyholder, policy type, coverage amount, and other factors, you can expect whole life insurance premiums to cost at least five times as much as term life insurance premiums for the same coverage amount.
The cost of term life insurance is affected by several factors, including age, gender, family medical history, your health, occupation, lifestyle, coverage amount, and term.
You can usually renew a term life insurance policy when the initial policy term ends. However, the renewal period is likely to be much shorter — typically a five-year or even one-year term — and your premium will be much higher.
Term life insurance policies do not have cash value. You can’t borrow against the policy during the term and won’t receive any payout if you outlive the policy, with the possible exception of premiums returned as part of a return-of-premium rider.
Most people need some amount of term life insurance. You’re a good candidate for this type of coverage if you have substantial debts that may outlive you, such as a mortgage on your first home, you expect to incur substantial expenses in the future, such as college tuition for your kids, your family would be adversely affected by the loss of your income, your death would create additional financial or labor burdens for your survivors, such as childcare while your spouse is at work, or you’re a partner in a business that would be adversely affected by your death.
Typically, if you outlive your term life insurance policy, it expires and you no longer have coverage unless you purchase a new one. However, some policies have options for conversion or renewal.
The age limit for term life insurance depends on the insurance company. Some allow applicants up to 80 with a medical exam. Others keep the limits much lower, or if they allow older applicants, they limit the coverage terms to 10 or 20 years.
To find the best life insurance company for your situation, consider why you’re getting life insurance in the first place. Confirm that term life insurance is the appropriate choice. Then, figure out how much coverage you need. If you need a substantial coverage amount, make sure the insurers you’re looking at can accommodate. Some require a medical exam for coverage above $500,000 or $1 million. Others put hard caps on coverage even with full medical underwriting.
Don’t snooze on life insurance companies’ financial strength ratings either. For your beneficiaries’ sake, you want your insurer to be there to pay your policy’s death benefit, whether that’s necessary tomorrow or 30 years from now.
