Banner Life Insurance Company – Under the Microscope Review

One of the most common questions that I hear from folks planning on applying for low cost Term life insurance is “what life insurance company do you recommend I apply with”? There is actually no specific company that is the best fit for everyone due to the variation in their health history, age, type of work they do, tobacco use, what kind of sports they are involved with and a number of other very important variables.

There are many excellent companies doing business in the United States and we are going to take a close look at just one of them today in this article. This excellent A+ rated company is Banner Life.

This is an in depth review of a life insurance company that deserves a high degree of recognition.

Banner Life is a company we use quite often due to the fact they offer the best of both worlds. The two main prerequisites we look for in a company is how competitive are their life insurance rates and how financially stable are they. If have to always keep in mind that you may purchase life insurance today but your benefits may not be requested to pay out a claim for 20 or 30 years or even more from now. How financially fit a company is now may not mean they will be in the same financial condition many years from now. This is why you have to choose a company that is financially strong at this point in time and has a strong projected financial future.

Banner life and their parent company has been in business for over 180 years.

Banner Life’s parent company Legal & General was founded in London in 1836. Let’s take a look at just some of the import facts about Banner Life and the Legal & General Group of companies:

• Banner Life has almost 1,140,000 U.S. Customers.
• They have issued more than $50 Billion of new coverage last year alone.
• Their new coverage in force ranks 5th in the United States.
• Banner has over $7 Billion in assets.
• Legal & General Group has $658 Billion of life insurance coverage in force.
• Their net income is over $150,000,000 per year.
• Legal & General has over 10,000,000 customers worldwide.
• Legal & General is the 6th largest life insurance company in the world.
• The company financial strength rating is A+ with the A.M. Best reporting agency.

The Legal & General insurance company was formed by a group of highly respected lawyers from London and the rest became a historical event. As Legal & General grew, the company purchased the Government Employees Life Insurance Company in 1981 which then became the Banner Life Insurance company. They now have offices in Germany, India, Egypt, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands and the United States.

Banner Life uses independent insurance agents to promote their product and have over 75,000 licensed agents licensed to do business in the U.S.

The Banner Life Insurance Company’s product line is:

• Term Life Insurance
• Universal Life Insurance
• Annuities

Banner Life offers 10,15, 20, 25 and 30-year Term life insurance plan designs which are renewable and convertible.

Banner Life also offer an excellent line of Universal Life insurance products which are permanent forms of life insurance unlike Term which expires after the term period. Universal Life stays in force for the rest of your life as long as you keep paying your premiums.

Banner’s No-Medical Exam Life Insurance

As one of the new kids on the block offering No-Medical Exam life insurance companies this year, Banner Life introduced its new APPcelerate process which is a totally an automatically underwritten application process. Applicants can now use an independent agent to complete a simple telephone application which requires no medical exam, which would also include no blood test or medical records required.

Approval times can range from several hours to one day to be completely processed and good to go. This makes the purchase of life insurance extremely fast and simple to say the very least.

Here is what is available and how it works:

• Their OPTerm product is available with a term period of 10, 15, 20 and 30 years.
• Applicants for this program must be between the ages of 20 and 50 years of age.
• The Face Amount (death benefit) ranges from the minimum of $100,000 all the way up to $500,000.
• The rate classification for this new system is Preferred Plus Non-Tobacco, Preferred Non-Tobacco, and Standard Plus Non-Tobacco rate classes.

The great part about this program is the premiums for the No-Medical Exam policy is exactly the same as the fully underwritten version. Traditionally Non-Med plan designs always cost more but not is this case with the new Banner life plan design.

For some reason if you fail to qualify for the Non-Med version you can simply apply for the fully underwritten product.

When someone applies for a Banner Life policy the company primarily looks for these main concerns which would be:

• Smoking or other forms of tobacco use
• Blood Pressure
• Family health history (parents)
• Current Cholesterol Levels
• Height & Weight of the applicant

Banner Life is very liberal the way they handle applicants that have simple health conditions or even more serious medical conditions. This is what make them such a good company to utilize. Some of the very strong points that Banner Life has is with how the underwrite pre-existing medical conditions such as:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Asthma
• Overweight situations
• Sleep Apnea
• Hypertension
• High Cholesterol
• Heart conditions
• Skin Cancer
• Parents health conditions

Let’s compare some Term life insurance quotes for a 30-year-old male with a face amount of $500,000 for a 20-year term period in the Preferred-Non Tobacco classification.

• Protective Life – $317.00
• Banner Life – $319.00
• SBLI – $319.00
• Mutual of Omaha – $332.00
• North American – $335.00
• Principal National – $338.00
• Transamerica – $340.00
• AXA Equitable – $355.00
• Assurity – $365.00
• Voya – $370.00
• Lincoln Financial – $400.00
• Prudential – $450.00
• Sagicor – $472.00
• Foresters – $475.00

Banner Life is consistently one of the most competitive company’s hands down doing business in the United States today.

What I personally like about Banner is their underwriting team that really cares about helping their agents receive the very best life insurance product with the lowest rates for their clients. This combination of competitive pricing and excellent customer service is why so many agents in the U.S. turn to Banner Life as their go to life insurance company. Banner Life is also excellent in promptly paying claims.

Banner Life’s USA home office is located at:

3275 Bennett Creek Avenue

Frederick, Maryland 21704

Web Address: www.lgamerica.com

Here are the available riders that can be added to a Banner Life policy:

Waiver of Premium Rider:

This great benefit gives you the peace of mind knowing that if you were to suffer a serious long-term illness or injury, and become totally disabled, your family or business will remain protected by your life insurance policy. Banner Life will waive all premiums that are due to be paid during the total disability period. They will need proof of disability in order to waive the premiums.

Policy Conversion Rights:

The conversion option gives you the option to convert your Term policy for a Universal Life permanent type insurance policy. The best advantage of the conversion rights is that when utilized, the new Universal Life policy will be issued at the same underwriting class as your existing term. For example, if a serious change in your health should take place, you would be exempt from a change in your current underwriting class.

Conversions can be requested at any time you wish within the duration of the guaranteed level premium period, up to age 70, whichever comes first. Policies issued at age 66 or over are convertible during the first five years of the policy.

Flexible Payment Schedule:

Policy premiums can be paid Annually, Semi-annually, Quarterly and Monthly. Premiums are usually calculated on an annual payment basis. If you prefer to pay premiums with one of the other billing periods, your total premium will increase.

Term Riders:

A process referred to as “Laddering” life insurance coverage is a great way to get the right amount of protection for correct period of time. Using a Term Rider offers additional temporary coverage for a period shorter term period than what the base policy provides. Using the Term Rider is a very cost effective way to protect yourself from being over or under-insured as your financial liabilities change over time. Here is a good example of how a term rider is used, you can start out with a 30-year base Term life plan design and add a 20-year rider to cover your mortgage payoff amount and a 10-year rider to cover the expense of a dependents education.

Accelerated Death Benefit Rider:

If you are diagnosed with a terminal illness, this rider will allow the death benefit can be paid prior to your death if you are facing a qualifying terminal illness. The maximum amount of the accelerated death benefit amount is the lesser of $500,000 or 75% of the policy’s primary death benefit.

The accelerated death benefit is treated as a lien, which accrues interest. Upon the death of the insured, the death benefits payable will be reduced by the total accelerated death benefit lien. This will allow you to use the death benefit for such needs as lost income due to sickness.

Children’s Rider:

The Children’s Life Insurance Rider provides a death benefit for one or more children in the family. A single rider covers all of the eligible children up to the youngest child’s 25th birthday or the insured’s 65th birthday or upon termination of the policy. The rider cost is level in all years. This rider can only be added on at the time of the initial policy application.

Make sure you check out our list of other life insurance companies we work with and also our top 12 companies blog post to see how many of these companies compare with Banner Life.

Thank you for vising our website and reading this blog post. I hope it has answered a lot of your questions. Take care and stay healthy!

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