Can a Convicted Felon Get Life Insurance? A Detailed Guide to Meeting the Requirements in [2024]
Can you get life insurance with a felony, you sure can. Applying for life insurance for convicted felons is a little more
involved than most conventional life insurance applications. But the applicant can succeed if they use the right life insurance company.
The life insurance industry knows that people are only human and can all make mistakes, but they still consider felons a higher risk.
Applying for life insurance for convicted felons promotes underwriters to find out who this applicant really is to properly view their application.
A felony conviction on your record is not the end of the world when purchasing life insurance. Unfortunately, the statistics show that people with criminal histories tend to live shorter lives.
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What Happens When Applying for Life Insurance With a Felony Conviction?
The statistics show that about 87% of life insurance with a criminal history applicants have no idea that a criminal
charge on their record could inhibit them from buying life insurance.
Trying to qualify for life insurance for convicted felons can go from no problem to impossible, depending on exactly what kind of offense it was and its specific details.
The felony class of convictions makes it much harder than misdemeanors. One in every three American adults has a criminal record. The exact specifics of your felony, especially the same offense and how severe it was, are examined closely by the underwriting team at the insurance company. Life Insurance Criminal Record
The bottom line is what you did to get arrested and convicted will determine if you will get approved or declined.
For example, a person convicted of murder, rape, or child molestation will be out of the question. Felony convictions are steadily rising in the United States. The request for life insurance for convicted ex-felons has increased 8% in the last year.
The Time Factor of the Criminal Offense
All life insurance companies want to zero in on when you committed the crime you were convicted of. If the crime appears to be an isolated incident and the conviction date was several years in the past, we will consider this.
On the other hand, if you were convicted multiple times for a felony degree crime. This will indicate that you did not learn from your experience and will likely decline your application.
If the crime was an isolated incident that occurred years earlier, there is a likelihood that your application could be approved. Life Insurance Criminal Record
You can expect your application to be declined if you are actively on probation or parole. However, you still have the opportunity to re-apply at a later date. If you apply for life insurance for convicted felons and your application is declined, you can re-apply later.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Can I Buy Life Insurance With a History of Violent Crime?
Answer: Many questions will need to be answered here such as the exact nature of the violent crime, how long ago was the violent crime committed, how many times have you committed a violent crime to date and how old were you when you were convicted of this crime. A history of violent crime could go either way as far as being approved.
Can I Buy Life Insurance With Multiple Convictions?
Answer: Life insurance companies will look at this as a case of not learning your lesson. The track record for this is poor and the applicant will appear to be a repeat offender who will be back in prison on a regular basis increasing the percentage of being killed either in prison or by being killed in the act of committing the crimes.
This will lessen your chances of being approved but additional questions will have to be answered to know for sure.
Can I Buy Life Insurance With a Firearm-Related Offense?
Answer: Using a gun in the commission of a crime will indicate you were contemplating killing someone when you performed your criminal act. This will just about destroy your chances of buying life insurance. Your application will most likely be declined because of a gun-related felony conviction.
Can I Apply for Life Insurance With a Sex-Crime Conviction?
Answer: Normally you will be declined for any sex-related crimes such as rape or child molestation convictions.
Can Convicts Currently in Prison Obtain Life Insurance Coverage?
Suppose you are a convicted criminal confined to a state or federal prison. Your chances of getting approved for conventional life insurance are incredibly slim. Life Insurance Criminal Record
However, you can apply for a final expense policy, otherwise known as guaranteed issued life insurance. These policies have guaranteed acceptance, usually with two years for the policy to pay the face amount.
Death benefits are generally up to $25,000, with some companies having a $35,000 maximum. If you die before the two-year elimination period, the policy will only pay out the number of your premiums. These are Whole Life policies.
Do Carriers Take into Account the Specifics of a Crime?
Most of all, the life insurance companies will be mainly concerned with what type of crime you committed.
Also, applications with violent crimes against people, such as murder, battery, or rape, will undoubtedly decline.
Life insurance companies that insure felons put a lot of weight on the nature of the crimes. Crimes such as drug sales convictions far enough in your past could be approved as long as you have been clean from corruption for 3-5 years.
Repeat offenders will never meet the guidelines and can be declined from coverage, as many Americans with college diplomas have felony convictions.
Factors Considered by Life Insurance Companies?
These categories are all prevalent to law-breaking offenders and the usual associations that they keep:
1. High risk lifestyles
2. Poor overall health due to incarceration
3. Heavy tobacco use
4. Excessive alcohol use
5. Narcotics use and addiction
6. Serious Diseases contracted in jails
7. Greater chance of accidental death
8. Death from the commission of a crime
9. Filing for one or more bankruptcies
Life insurance companies consider felons low-risk, and the statistics support this belief. However, purchasing life insurance for felons with a serious offense with bodily injury is more complicated.
Nearly 44% criminals, having served their time and been released from prison, are re-arrested within a year, causing insurers to question the likelihood of their future criminal activities.
Important Questions That Will Need to be Answered
These are essential questions the companies will want answers to before they proceed with processing your application:
Type of Crime You Committed:
Severe felonies such as murder, armed robbery, terrorism, rape, sexual assaults on minors, and narcotics sales will decline right from the get-go.
However, you have an excellent chance of being approved if you were charged with a minor charge such as vandalism, fraud, or theft.
When You Committed a Crime:
The milder crimes are reviewed less severely as time passes. The longer it’s been since you committed the crime, the better.
This holds unless you have committed additional crimes since then. Purchasing life insurance with a criminal record is much easier if the crime was committed in the past.
How Many Crimes You Committed:
Committing multiple crimes will peg you as a repeat offender and drastically reduce your chances of being approved for life insurance for felons.
Current Status of Your Crime:
Are you still on probation or parole for the crime you were convicted of?
Crime Severity:
If your crime is violent against persons afflicted with physical or mental injury, you can quickly decline your application.
Does a Felony Record Affect the Cost of a Policy?
Usually, unless your criminal charges are mild, your rates will be affected in one way, shape, or form. This is because anytime a risk exposure increases for a life insurance company, they have to charge for that additional risk based on their statistical reports.
Life insurance companies’ rates are built on the statistics that they pay statisticians every year. This is the only way to be fair with the consumers and their ability to pay death claims as requested yearly.
Health Conditions and Life Insurance Premiums
Health conditions are your primary concern with your application for life insurance for felons and criminal charges. Your history of any brushes with the law will be secondary in this case.
Depending on the health conditions you may have. The health classification you will be assigned will be adjusted accordingly with the added risk your health conditions impose.
Suppose your health conditions are not in any way life-threatening. In that case, they probably will not make any difference in your premium if you apply for life insurance for convicted felons and have any severe medical conditions.
Again, this is because the life insurance company will be more concerned with your health than your criminal record. We run a quick medical pre-screen on our applicants in order to determine what carriers to use and be able to give you an accurate premium to expect.
Pre-screening is nothing more than simply asking a few questions to eliminate any surprises later during the course of the application process.
Applying Without Taking a Medical Exam
Another option is to apply for life insurance for convicted felons and skip the medical exam. These plan designs are referred to as No-Medical-Exam Life Insurance also known as Non-Med Life Insurance.
The best part about not having medical exam life insurance is that no medical records are typically requested. Also, there are no para-med exam visits with the typical blood test either.
Non-Med policies have very short turnaround times, and some companies can approve you within 24-48 hours. The number of asked questions is far less than their full underwriting counterparts.
How to Secure the Lowest Rates for Term Life Insurance in 2024
Our Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this blog post provides a lot of insight into buying life insurance for felons. The easiest thing to do is give us a
call seven days a week and we will answer all your questions.
Applying for life insurance with a criminal offense is not complicated. The first step is to apply and let the application process begin. Thank you for visiting our website and taking the time to read this article.
All the best,
Jack Venturi
For any questions you might have, you may call us at 815-390- 7545 and we will provide a quick answer.
