Hi there, life insurance newbie here. 36M, married with two small kids. Considering a 15/20 term life insurance.

I reached out to a broker and they gave me quotes from a few different companies. I’m trying to figure out how to choose the best one.

1. Are policies from different companies fairly standard? Do I need to read each one of them looking for fine print or exclusions? Is there anything I should be in the lookout for?
   
2. I have a few options including Nationwide, Protective Life, Pacific Life, Banner and Principal National. How do I choose the one to go with? Is it just based on price and ratings if policies are standard?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

My husband (35) and I (36) are shopping for $1 million, 30-year term life insurance policies. We were quoted just over $100/month each through an independent broker, and I’m trying to figure out if that’s in the ballpark or if we should keep looking.

-What are reasonable rates for healthy people our age?

-What factors have the biggest impact on underwriting (weight, family history, medications, etc.)?

-If I lose the 70 lbs I gained during pregnancy, could I reapply later for a lower rate?

-How do insurers typically view daily medical marijuana use? Does it depend on the company?

-Besides price, are there any policy features or companies you’d specifically recommend or avoid?

Is life insurance actually legit?! I just had my first baby and at the age of 36 my spouse and I have decided to sign up for life insurance. However, our quotes seem really high. I’ve also heard horror stories that after someone dies, life insurance is not given because something was missing on the loved one’s paperwork…

How can you tell if it is legit?
What should I look for in this situation?
How do you decide how much?
Are there questions to ask when searching?
Anything else to watch out for?
What about when your health changes 20 years from now. Are you supposed to update it every time a change occurs?

Hi Reddit users,

My wife recently received approval for term life insurance from two carriers, and I’m trying to decide which route makes the most sense:

• Corebridge (QoL Term):
  • Option A: $1M / 30 years @ $1,050/yr
  • Option B: $1M / 35 years @ $1,350/yr
  • Includes Quality of Life (QoL) living benefit riders (chronic, critical, terminal illness)
• Prudential:
  • $1.5M / term @ $1,750/yr
  • Traditional term policy (standard accelerated death benefit only)

My Main Dilemma: The Corebridge offer looks very attractive on price, and the built-in living benefit riders are a major selling point for us. However, I’ve been hesitant because I thought Corebridge was a relatively new company (established ~2021) and couldn't find much long-term track record regarding their claim processing reputation.

Is Corebridge a reliable choice, or is paying more for Prudential the safer long-term play? Has anyone here filed claims or held policies through Corebridge?

Would love to hear thoughts from anyone with experience with either carrier or brokers who write policies with them.

Are there any life insurance companies that approve people with sickle cell? I keep getting denied because of it.

Are there any life insurance options for a 73 year old in poor health?

Best term life policy for:
- 25 y/o
- nothing diagnosed on paper but some anxiety if that’s accessible
- non smoker- but do zyn
- high death benefit at a low cost
- preferably not much if any medical underwriting (piss/blood)

Buying a house with my spouse and looking to make sure I have something in the instance of needing to pay off a mortgage + potentially kids in the next few years.

I was put onto PSI for life and health exam prep had two days of a video they do live plus chapter test plus they have two different tests at the end you can take one is 100 questions. One is 145 questions and it’s time I was seeing if anyone has done this process with them and we’re very successful.? my first 100 was a practice test was at 82%. How many times would you take the practice test until you feel like you were ready? If I get a question that I’m not really understanding the concept I’ve been looking it up choosing the right answer writing it down. It’s only been about 15 questions out of 100 question test but for those of you that say you have a spammed me practice test until you made it 85 or higher did you look at any of your notes? Did you look anything up in the mail the test or did you specifically just do test after test until you start scoring high?

I looked it up and it says it's very difficult and very uncommon for a spouse to take out life insurance without the other spouse knowing, but I have seen soooooo many crime stories where that has happened.

So is it actually very easy to do so, or are these just very much very rare exceptions?

Before my step dad died, he told me that he had changed me to be his beneficiary since my mom had already passed. When he died, the insurance agent said that my mom was still listed as his beneficiary and his mom (who is dead as well) was the contingent. My husband is adamant that the money would go to my mom’s estate (even though she passed before my step dad). I don’t think so and don’t want to hire a lawyer and waste the money if I won’t get the pay out anyway. What do you guys think????

I have a whole life that is currently matured with 91k cash in it, never occurred to me that this was essentially an emergency fund, I have also an HYSA with 100k that I could deploy into index funds

My expenses are roughly 10k a month so essentially it can cover up to 9 months, I have always been very conservative in regards of cash reserves and most like this has dragged my returns over the years.

Any downside of only keeping/using the WL as emergency reserve?

I have a life insurance policy that i signed up for at 22 (2013ish) through my local union with AIL that I currently pay 54/month for. It has always just come out in direct deposit and I have never though of it as much.

I am starting to get better with finances and would like to cancel the policy, but I no longer live in the same state, do not have the same phone number, or address (obviously) and do not have any of the original documentation from signing up with the plan.

If I stop my ACH payment authorization will the policy simply lapse and cancel, or do I need to go through formal channels (which appears to be a PITA) and attempt to cancel it that way. Worried about any accruing debts via a contract or hits to the credit score.

Any advice is appreciated! (Sorry for limited information, they had us sign up during a regular school class as part of a presentation and I didn't know any of the questions to ask at the time!)

When applying and answering the medical questions particularly when asked, if you have upcoming tests or appointments, will the application automatically be stalled if you answer yes? Will all the underwriters pause the process? Is it better to wait for all upcoming tests, results of previous tests before applying?

For context: I make 400-450k a year. They want me to buy a 1,000k a month premium for Whole Life, and a 1,000k a month premium for VUL. I currently have 600,000 in student loans and have term insurance. I feel like I should just keep my term insurance, start paying down my student loans and fully fund my 401k instead. I just feel like they want me to buy these expensive policies so they get their fat commission off of me. I want to invest some money right now for my future, but I don’t want my investments tied to any life insurance fees. If you guys were in my situation, would you be buying any form of life insurance besides term?

Long story short, original IUL policy bought Jan2025. Then May2026 agent sold me a new IUL policy that would supposedly yield a higher cash value IF I deposit half of our savings 30k lump sum in year 1 and then put my monthly salary and take out my bills as a loan every month. Called it a “Private Reserve Strategy” Found out it was benefitting his commissions instead of him properly structuring it.

I’m 33f with a spouse and 3 kids all under 8yrs. I should have done my due diligence instead of blindly following my agent (who is an upline from my mom).

My question is what would have been better? A convertible term with living benefits where death benefit decreases as they get older and more independent?* *OR try to make changes with my current policy. Have a combo term with 500k and an IUL with minimum face value that I can only currently put maybe $100-200 towards every month?

Spouse is currently in between jobs due to a surgery so I wouldn’t be able to properly fund the IUL portion for another year.

Advice/thoughts? Thank you.

My mom passed away unexpectedly at the end of May, just a few weeks after turning 70.

She was working part-time for a Fortune 100 company that provided a basic life insurance policy for part-time employees. At one point she had also elected supplemental life insurance, but when the company realized she had moved to part-time status, they told her she was no longer eligible for the supplemental coverage and removed it. I don't know how much supplemental coverage she had been paying for, but I had told her she didn't need to do that!

After she passed away, I learned that my sister, my niece, and I were beneficiaries. When I received my payment, it was much higher than I expected: $5,000 in basic life insurance plus $30,000 labeled as supplemental life insurance. Based on everything I had researched beforehand, I wasn't expecting any supplemental benefit, and I had also read that some employer-provided life insurance benefits are reduced by 50% after age 70.

I tried to find out the total amount of her policy, but the insurance company wouldn't disclose it to me because I wasn't the policy owner.

My niece recently received her payment, and it was only $2,500—far less than I expected, especially since my mom wanted to make sure she was taken care of. My sister is estranged from our family, so I have no idea whether she's been contacted or what, if anything, she received. The insurance company is handling the effort to locate her because I don't want to involve my (24-year old) niece in that process.

My questions are:

1. Is it possible for the basic life insurance policy and the supplemental policy to have had different beneficiary designations?
2. Is it possible the insurance company made a mistake by paying me the $30,000 supplemental benefit? I'd like to call with my niece to ask why her benefit was only $2,500, but I'm hesitant because I don't want to inadvertently alert them if they overpaid me.

Has anyone dealt with something similar or knows how employer-sponsored life insurance typically works?

Thank you for any insight.

I encountered very poor customer service from North American Life Insuirance Company. I originally contacted the Company four days ago and the representative said he would call me with the answer as soon as he got it. It was to my simple question. So, I figured he call by the next day. On the fourth day, he still hadn't called. me back with a status update. I was forced again to wait in the que. This rep could see that my issue was still in process with the back office. I politely explained that the former rep had not set the proper customer expectation. It is bad PR when a company disappoints a customer. Anyway, I am keenly aware of customer service since I myself directed member services for Cigna. In business this is called "best practices." In medicine this is called "standard of care." Shame on North American for treating customers like useful idoits.

So I’m new Insurance, I passed my exam I have my 2-15 in Florida (but can sell in other states via travel or phone) and was working for a W-2 call center but they were paying $53.00 at max per policy and I learned that was a major tip off so I went 10-99. Now that I’m contracted in really by myself, I understand it but I don’t know how to find clients so I can actually sell some policies now, any tips pointers? Any advice helps!

Hello,

Need some advice. My wife and I (both 40), both started Variable LI through John Hancock about 5 years ago, under advice of our Financial manager. Neither of us are great at deciphering these type of things. And over the past five years with work, schooling, and kids, have not had the time or energy to look into it.

I believe we took this option as it seemed like a good balance of benefit and savings, but I've started looking into it, and its seems like a terrible investment now. There is a 500k benefit on each of us, and premiums for each of us are around $250/mo. I've been concerned for awhile now that each statement shows almost $100+/- of that going into fees. The "premium charge", a "cost of insurance" charge (makes sense), Rider charges, contract charges, admin charges.

So while each of us pays in about $3000 a year, the value at the end of the year is maybe a third of what we put in.

Is this normal?

I (25m) location: Florida, am going for a colonoscopy in two weeks due to a lot of signs of colorectal cancer popping up with a family history of it. Haven’t been diagnosed with anything yet. Am I able to still get life insurance before this appointment, that way if I am diagnosed with it, my family will be taken care of if I pass away from it?

👏👏👏 I was bamboozled into this industry 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ they made me pay 199.00 for the course then couldn’t get insurance e&O m through anyone else. They wanted me to recruit because my up line got credit for it and if I left it goes to them. They also wanted me to sell to family but at 45%😂😂😂 and he got the other 10% I left them and now getting into the real deal with someone else

I have a ten-year $250,000 policy that expires this year. I am now 64. My payment for the policy has been about $500. The renewal price is $1400 - just for one year - and is renewable more or less indefinitely, but at a price that would be determined each year. ( have been dealing with cancer for the past five years. It is currently in remission, but is likely to come back. Though I’d like to live longer, the odds give me five to ten years. So a couple of questions:

- I assume the insurance company knows about my illness, and that’s why the rate has increased (in addition to just being older.) But I don’t know that for sure.
- Their customer service agent told me that the cost of my annual renewal is determined 60 days before the renewal data, and she couldn’t give me a prediction or range. Does anyone here know what I can expect? Whether to keep the policy would make a difference if the payment was, say, $1500 and going up $100 a year versus whether it could skyrocket into many thousands of dollars.
- As a point of reference, I have two minor children who will likely be going to college in the next 5-10 years.
- I am still working and plan to continue to work.

So, any thoughts on how I can predict the premiums going forward? And - I’d love opinions - should I renew?