If you are trying to learn more about Banner Life, you’ve come to the right place. Here at InsureChance we work with over 60 top rated life insurance companies and Banner Life is one of our favorites. They offer some of the most competitive rates, have aggressive underwriting guidelines and a ton of great products. In addition to this, they are a very old and reputable company to do business with. Banner is also quite innovative with a constant improvement in their plans, applications processes and customer service. Overall, Banner Life is a great choice for most customers and below is a quick summary to let you get the most important info in a flash. If you’re a reader and like to dig deep feel free to check out the entire article.
Quick Summary of Banner Life:
- Banner Life is the 5th largest insurer in the U.S. and was founded in 1949.
- The company is rated “A+” by A.M. Best and they have over a million U.S. customers.
- They offer term life insurance plans with varying lengths such as 10, 15, 20, 25 and a 30-year term.
- If you need coverage longer than that you can get a no-lapse universal plan locked in until age 100 or 121
- For people with preexisting conditions Banner can be very competitive as they will offer considerations for diabetics and offer preferred rates to people with controlled blood pressure.
- They offer credits for a healthy lifestyle so you may get bumped up to a better rate, not all companies do this.
- Very competitive in their premiums compared to the rest of the companies.
- The application process is quicker and sometimes you may be able to skip the exam with their accelerated underwriting program. For applications with face amounts of $500k or less.
Banner Life Company
Banner Life has a long history in the insurance industry and its parent company has been around for about 180 years, known as Legal & General Group. Banner currently has a crazy amount of life insurance on their books, the number is staggering $658 billion dollars. They also have $7.3 billion in assets which is good to know since they can pay out a claim. When looking at a life insurance company, you want to work with the ones that have high ratings and Banner is definitely a highly rated company.
Financial Strength Ratings:
A+ (Superior) from A.M. Best
AA- (Very Strong) from S&P
AA- (Very Strong) from Fitch
Very few companies have similar ratings and Banner has been maintaining this year after year.
Banner Life Plans
Banner life has some of the most straightforward and simple to understand life insurance products in the entire marketplace. Unlike most other life insurance companies they don’t offer complicated products that only an experienced financial planner can understand. Instead, they offer you pure protection life insurance products for both term and permanent life insurance depending on your need. Let’s cover both of their term and universal life product to see which ones will be ideal for you and your family.
Term life insurance
Banner life offers a term product known as OpTerm. You can secure a policy for a period of time ranging from 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30-year term lengths. This is a fixed level coverage with premiums locked in for the duration of the term that you choose. Which means that your life insurance payment will not increase or decrease during the term length of the policy and your benefit amount will also stay the same. It is also important to note that their term life insurance product is convertible to their universal life with no questions asked and no medical examination before the age of 70 or the expiration of your term, whichever comes first. These plans are also renewable annually, once your Term Policy expires. However, it’s important to know that your policy will go up in cost every year that you renew. That is why we usually recommend shopping for a new policy before your term expires if you are in good health and if your health is not great it is advisable to convert your policy.
Most term life insurance policies come with some customizations known as policy riders. Some of these riders are built into the policy without any additional cost and others can be acquired for an additional monthly fee on top of your life insurance premiums. So let’s take a second to review some of these options on Banner life term policies:
Accelerated death benefit Rider – this is a built-in option that allows your term life policy to advance 75% of your policy death benefit up to $500,000 or less if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness. If you survive the illness you will not have to pay this money back, rather it simply gets deducted from your death benefit.
Children’s rider – This option is available for an extra monthly premium that provides life insurance for your children under your policy and this rider will cover all eligible children for the same cost. What’s really cool about this rider is that your kids can convert this policy to a universal life with no questions asked.
Waiver of premium – another rider that is available for an extra cost that will waive your monthly premiums in the event you become totally disabled. The company will need to get proof of total disability.
Universal Life Insurance
For some individuals, a term policy is not enough to cover their needs and that’s when a permanent life insurance plans can come in handy. A no lapse universal life policy is usually locked in until age 100 or 121, the premiums are locked in and the coverage will not change for the duration of the policy. This type of policy makes a lot of sense for certain situations like wealth transfers, estate taxes and final expenses. For people over age 50 looking for term life insurance, it is often times better to get a lifetime plan than a 30-year term since the cost is very similar.
Banner Life offers a great no lapse universal life product known as Lifetime Guarantee. You can have level coverage that will not lapse as long as you pay your monthly premiums which are also going to be fixed for a lifetime. You can also pay this policy off sooner, for example, you can have payments for 10 or 15 years that are higher but then have lifetime protection without any more payments. This is actually a great investment since you are creating more money for your family by simply paying lower payments now. Many individuals in their old age do this to create a bigger cash pile to leave for charities or their family members.
Although this policy is not focused on generating cash value as other more costly permanent plans, it does accumulate a portion of the premium in an interest saving account. Typically after 5 years, you’ll have some cash value accumulation that can be withdrawn if you have a family emergency or just need some money.
Just like their term plans the Lifetime Guarantee universal life does come with some optional add-ons.
Accelerated death benefit Rider – this is a built-in option for your term life policy that will advance 75% of your policy death benefit up to $500,000 or less if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness. If you survive the illness you will not have to pay this money back rather it will simply get deducted from your death benefit.
Children’s rider – This option is available for an extra monthly premium that provides life insurance for your children under your policy and this rider will cover all eligible children for the same cost.
Waiver of premium – another rider that is available for an extra cost that will waive your monthly premiums in the event you become totally disabled. The company will need to get proof of total disability.
Banner Life Pricing
When shopping for term life or no lapse universal life, pricing is an important factor. You want to make sure that you get the best deal on the market and that you can comfortably pay the monthly premiums for your plan. Well, the great news is that most of the time Banner Life actually has the most affordable monthly premiums compared to all other top rated companies. From our experience, it is very common that out of 60 companies that we represent, Banner comes out in the top five most of the time for our clients.
In addition to the great pricing, they offer flexible payment options with both their term life and permanent life insurance plans. You have an option to do monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual payments. In the case of their universal life product, you can even pay off your policy in few years. For example, let’s say a 50-year-old bought a $250,000-lifetime plan and selected a 10-Pay option, by the time he is 60 his policy would be paid off and he would be covered until age 100 or 121 with no additional payment required.
For additional savings, we recommend paying policies annually since you can save additional 2% to 3% in comparison to a monthly premium. Another way is to save age with the policy which you can read more about here. In a nutshell, Banner Life is one of our go-to companies for cost-conscious consumers that still wants coverage with a top tier company. If you want to maximize your savings here is a full length article on savings.
Underwriting General Guide for Banner Life
When applying for life insurance you have to go through a screening process before getting your final rate and approval with the company, this is known as the underwriting stage. This is when a person known as the underwriter will review your pharmacy records, motor vehicle history, lab results and in some cases request your medical records to make a cumulative decision.
Banner Life has pretty aggressive underwriting for people that have pre-existing conditions and is actually one of our go to companies for people with diabetes. They also do well with other illness and dangerous occupations. Their underwriting process is a lot quicker than some other large insurers which can help you get your policy in force much faster.
Application Process with Banner Life
Just like all other large life insurance companies, Banner life has an application process that takes about 3 to 5 weeks from the time we do the application to the policy being issued. However, what makes them different is that they have accelerated underwriting option for applications with face amounts under $500,000 and with a health rating of standard or better. What this means for you is that if you qualify for their accelerated underwriting program, you’ll be able to secure a policy without the need of doing a medical exam, which saves a ton of time from the typical application process with a required examination.
With accelerated underwriting, the company will not request a medical exam but will look at your medical records, prescription records, and motor vehicle history. They will also conduct a phone interview, which is much better than having to go through the hassle of a medical exam. In some cases, we have seen clients get approved for coverage within a matter of one to two weeks. This is by far way faster process than a traditional application process that can take up to 6 weeks.
Sometimes because of the amount of insurance needed is higher than $500,000 or pre-existing medical condition, you will have to go through the traditional application process with them. This involves completing an application, medical examination and an underwriting review. The application consists of questions that pertain to your overall health, lifestyle and of course your beneficiary designations. After that the nurse practitioner will reach out to you to set up your medical exam which includes a blood pressure check, blood/urine sample and your built measurements.
Once all this is complete, the underwriter will review your application along with your medical exam and some medical records to give you your designated health class rating. The health class rating determines the premium that you will pay on your policy and ranges from preferred plus all the way to substandard rates. Depending on the rate class that you get, that will determine the premium that you will pay on your policy. One of the unique features of Banner Life is that it gives you credit for healthy habits and any other positive factors which will help you get bumped up to the next best health rating even if you were not going to get it in the first place.
To summarize the entire application process; you will complete an application, complete your medical exam if necessary and wait for the underwriter to make a decision. If you get their accelerated underwriting you’ll get a policy as quick as few weeks, otherwise, it could take between 3 to 6 weeks. Once your policy is approved, you’ll get it in the mail and you have a 30 day free look period by law, to make sure everything is in good order. This may seem like a long process with lots of steps but if you work with the right agency they will take care of all the steps from beginning to the end.
Customer Service
Banner life also has some of the most amazing customer services if you ever need to make updates to your policy or simply to ask a question you’ll usually be greeted with a live person who can assist you right away. Many of our customers say that it’s like night and day when it comes to customer service with Banner Life in comparison to other life insurance carriers. It is no wonder why Banner life is so highly rated!
Work with InsureChance
Is easy to see why Banner life is one of the best companies to choose for all your life insurance needs. They have one of the most competitive pricing backed by amazing customer service and financial strength to go along with it. Even still, when shopping for life insurance it’s important to keep in mind that each company will look at you differently. They all look at your overall health and amount of coverage you’re looking for to determine the rate they will give you, so there’s no one company that’s best for every client. That’s why here at InsureChance we work with over 60 different life insurers to get you the best rate on the entire Marketplace. We are also very experienced in underwriting so we will look for coverage based on your overall health and lifestyle. If it doesn’t get any better than that, we also offer a lifetime support so if you ever need to make changes to your policy or simply want to upgrade or downgrade your plan, a live agent is only a phone call away. Feel free to click on the box to your right to get quotes or simply call us at 1-888-492-1967 to speak to one of our licensed agents. Welcome to InsureChance!
