Assurity Life Insurance – In-Depth Review of the New Online Term Policy

For an easy term policy, Assurity Life Insurance company is one of our favorites because it’s super fast (potentially under 30 minutes) to get a policy in place, it’s all online, and it offers a bunch of customization options. 

We’re deep diving into a review of the nitty gritty policy provision. If you want to know what this type of policy entails, keep reading to have the information to make an informed life insurance decision. 

Quick Summary

If you want to get a policy in place today, Assurity offers an entirely online application. You don’t need to complete an exam for $1,000,000 in coverage or less, depending on your age.

This term life policy is one part of a 3-in-1 insurance option. (You don’t have to get all three.) It’s one of the few entirely online applications available today, and you can get approved with your policy in force in as little as 30 minutes. 

Basic Policy Provisions

Assurity Term Life offers an enormous range of options. It’s a term policy available to anyone between the ages of 18-75. The term lengths have upper age limits. 

• 10-year, 18-75
• 15-year, 18-70
• 20-year, 18-65
• 30-year, 18-55 (non-smoker)
• 30-year, 18-50 (smoker)

The face amounts range from $25,000 – $10 million. 

Assurity uses level terms. That means your benefits and premiums will stay the same for the life of the contract. 

Accelerated Underwriting Options

One of the best features of this policy is the entirely online application and the accelerated underwriting program. Basically, you can shorten the turnaround time on the policy from weeks to minutes. 

Accelerated underwriting only limits the amount of coverage. 

• Up to $1,000,000 for people age 18-50
• Up to $500,000 for people age 51-65

Here’s how it works:

1. Go to the online application website
2. Select the policy benefits and feature you want
   • The online portal also lets you bundle disability insurance and critical illness insurance
3. The application process will walk you through all of the information you need to enter
4. Get either instant approval or notification that they’ll need additional information (in very rare cases)

IMPORTANT: Mild health issues will be accepted for accelerated underwriting. If you have any of the following health issues, contact us for options. Accelerated Underwriting will not work for the following:

• Face amount above the limits listed above
• Obesity
• Bankruptcy within the last 2 years
• DUI or reckless driving charges within the last 2 years
• Prior felony convictions
• High-risk hobbies

There are also some medical conditions that trigger additional underwriting: 

• AIDS/HIV
• Cancer
• Chronic pulmonary disease
• Kidney disease
• Bipolar disorder
• Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
• Heart disease
• Parkinson’s disease
• Stroke

If you have any questions about policy features, riders, or anything else, give us a call at (888) 905-0333. 

Alternate Payment Options

Another customization option Assurity offers is the ability to adjust how you want the benefits paid out. You can do this either while the policy is in force or your beneficiary can adjust it to their individual preferences if the proceeds are payable to them. 

Fixed Period Option: Equal installment payments for a set number of years (less than 30.) Payments may be increased by interest. 

Fixed Amount Option: Installment payments at 1% interest until the funds are entirely depleted. 

Left at Interest Option: Assurity will pay interest periodically on the amount of benefits left with them. The interest will be at least 1% or possibly more.

Conversion Option 

Let’s say you get to the end of your term, and your reasons for keeping life insurance have changed. One common situation we see is a parent wanting to make sure their spouse can still take care of the kids should something happen. But then, the kids grow up, and they decide it would be nice to leave something behind. 

Assurity gives you the option of converting your term policy to a permanent policy. It also skips requiring what the industry calls “evidence of insurability” at the time of conversion.

Skipping that part is a huge benefit if a health complication has cropped up that would otherwise make it impossible or near-impossible to get a life insurance policy. That could be anything from beating cancer, uncontrolled diabetes, or even a fun new hobby like motorcycle racing. 

You can convert all or part of the face amount to one of the permanent policies Assurity offers at the time of conversion. 

Your premiums will be adjusted to Assurity’s rates at the time of conversion for your age, gender, and underwriting class. Those last two will stay the same as your original policy, just your age gets updated. 

To take advantage of the conversion option, you will need to request conversion:

• 1 year before the end of the 10-year term
• 2 years before the end of the 15-, 20-, or 30-year term
• Before the policy anniversary when you’re 65-years-old

Riders

Riders adjust the policy to add features. For the Assurity life insurance individual term policy, only the Accelerated Death Benefits Rider is free.

Accelerated Death Benefits Rider

You can access up to $250,000 in benefits early upon diagnosis of terminal illness or if you’re likely to live out all of your remaining time in a nursing home. 

This rider gets automatically added to your policy at no charge. 

Children’s Term Rider

This adds a term policy (although the term limit varies) to a dependent child.

One of the neat things about this rider is even if you don’t have children, you can add it to your policy. Then, should you have children later, the rider kicks in and covers your child once he or she reaches 15 days old. A child can be a natural child, stepchild, or adopted child.

To be covered under the rider, your child must meet certain criteria. They must be:

• Unmarried
• Between the ages of 15 days and 17 years
• Financially dependent on the person insured by the base life insurance policy

When your child reaches age 25, the term policy expires. But it does have a good conversion option. The child can buy a new policy with benefits of up to 5x the child rider. However, if you start the conversion early, the benefit has to match the child rider benefits.

The other situation in which the rider might terminate early is if the child doesn’t meet the dependent criteria above.

Disability Waiver of Premium Rider

Waiver of premium allows you to keep your policy and all of its provisions in force without paying premiums while you are totally disabled. The fine print is the disability must happen before you turn 60 and last at least 6 months.

The insurance definition means that for the two years following your disability (injury or illness), you cannot do the “substantial and material” duties of your job (own occupation in insurance lingo) at the time of disability. Then, after the first two years, the definition changes. Disability is defined as being unable to do ANY job for which you have the education, training, or experience.

This rider drops off the policy at age 65.

To apply, you must be between the ages of 18 and 50 for the 30-year term. Then the age limit drops to 55 for all shorter life insurance term lengths.

Endowment Benefit Rider

Most companies call this a “return of premium” rider.

If the policy terminates for any reason other than the insured passes away (you cancel the policy or survive the term), it returns a percentage of premiums for:

• term life base policy
• the endowment benefit rider
• flat extra premiums
• table rating premiums

It does not return premiums for the annual policy fee or any other riders. The percentage of premium return depends on your benefits, issue age, gender, underwriting class, and term length. When you apply for the policy, they’ll give you those details since they vary by all the factors listed previously.  

You can only get this rider on the 20-year and 30-year terms.

20-year term:

• Ages 18 – 60, non-tobacco
• Ages 18 – 55, tobacco

For the 30-year term, the endowment rider is available for ages 18 – 60.

Not available in DE.

Other Insured Riders

If you have someone else on your policy, your spouse, for example, they can also have some of the riders on the “other insured” portion of the policy. The details of the riders are the same as the info above, with the caveat that you cannot exceed the benefits of the primary insured.

The riders available are:

• Accident Only Disability Income Rider
• Critical Illness Benefit Rider
• Other Insured Level Term Rider
• Monthly Disability Income Rider

Other Insured Level Term Rider

This lets you add someone else to your insurance policy. There must be an “insurable interest” in that person, meaning you’ll be negatively affected financially if they pass away. It’s designed to be for a spouse, but the wording is a less restrictive definition.

You can choose a term length of 10, 15, 20, or 30 years. The benefit can be different from the base policy but cannot exceed it.

At the end of the term, you can convert the rider into a permanent life insurance policy. The options for what policy and the new rates will be based on what Assurity’s current guidelines are at the time of conversion.

Other Parts of the 3-in-1 StartSmart

When you go to the website to look at the Assurity life insurance policy, you can also look into the extra parts below. They follow the same underwriting criteria and are part of the online application. 

Accident-Only Disability Income Rider

This rider pays you an extra monthly amount if you’re “totally disabled” resulting from and within 180 days of an accident. Totally disabled means you cannot do your job, even part-time.

The benefits range from $300 a month to either $3,000 a month or 1.5% of the base policy benefit (whichever is less). Assurity also limits the maximum benefit to 60% of your gross monthly income.

For the 10-, 15-, and 20-year terms, you can add this rider if you’re between the ages of 18 and 60. The age limit drops to age 50 for the 30-year term policy. The rider also drops off the policy once you reach age 65.

It has a 90-day elimination period. That’s the time you have to wait between filing for benefits and when you start receiving them. Then the benefits pay for two years.

It’s not available in CA, KS, MD, MA, NH, NJ, and VA.

Critical Illness Benefit Rider

This rider provides an extra benefit upon first-ever diagnosis of one of the following:

• Heart attack
• Major organ transplant
• Stroke
• Coronary bypass surgery (25%)
• Angioplasty (10%)
• Kidney failure
• Paralysis (not resulting from a stroke)
• Invasive cancer
• Carcinoma in situ (non-invasive cancer) (25%)

You can choose the amount of extra benefits anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 at the time of application. Although it cannot exceed the life insurance benefit. The rider drops off the policy at age 75. You can add it to a policy during the application for all policy lengths up to age 50. Then to 20-year and shorter up to age 60, and finally for 15-year or 10-year policies if you’re age 65 or younger.

There is some fine print around the categories that qualify for the critical illness product. If another illness happens within the same category, it’s the benefit percentage minus the previous payment. For example, if you had an angioplasty and got 10% of your benefit and then had a heart attack, you’d only get 90% of the benefit for the heart attack. If the order was reversed, you had a heart attack first, that’s 100% of your benefit, and nothing else is payable in that category.

Categorical illnesses must have at least 180 days between qualifying incidents. So if you had a benefit paid from Category 1, then had a Category 3 illness, benefits would only be paid if the diagnosis came at least six months later.

This rider isn’t available in CT, FL, IL, KS, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, PA, VA, and WA.

Monthly Disability Income Rider

Like the add-on Accident Only rider above. This rider provides a monthly income check for total disabilities. Meaning you cannot do the substantial and material duties of your job. It’s an own occupation definition, which is the best one in the disability insurance world. It covers both injuries and illness, the latter being much, much more common.

The benefits get paid for two years as long as you meet the disability definition. The waiting period is 90 days. That’s the time between your diagnosis from your doctor and when Assurity starts sending you the direct deposit.

The benefits start at $300 a month. They go all the way up to the lesser of $3,000 a month or 1.5% of the base policy benefit. It’s also limited to 60% of your gross monthly income. However, if you live in California, you’re limited to 40% of your gross monthly income.

To apply, you have to be employed full-time and have been with your current employer for at least one month.

You can’t have both the Monthly Disability Income Rider and the Accident-Only Disability Income Rider. (Since the vast majority of disability insurance claims are from illness, we strongly recommend you go with this option over the accident only.)

Click here to read more about how the 3-in-1 StartSmart insurance works.

Assurity Financial Strength

Assurity holds an A- (Excellent) from A. M. Best for financial stability. It’s always a good thing to check into long-term security of your benefits when shopping for any type of insurance. Anything with an A- or higher is usually a good choice.

B-Corp Certified

Assurity applied for and received a B-Corp certification. It’s not an organizational structure like a C-Corp or an LLC.

Instead, it means that Assurity had an independent company look at its business practices and financials to see if it meets the criteria for community and environmental responsibility. It passed.

Here’s why becoming a B Corporation is a big deal. 

Much of the advertising we see now is companies using environmental buzzwords and “greenwashing” advertising. B Corporations have to meet a strict set of criteria demonstrating accountability and unrelenting commitment to stakeholders (not just shareholders) like employees, the community, and the environment. 

Then they change their corporate charter to include all of the stakeholders in the fiduciary duties of the leadership and management. They really are responsible and accountable. 

Other B-Corp-certified companies you might know are Patagonia, Toms, and The Body Shop.

Conclusion

While Assurity is promoting this as part of their 3-in-1 StartSmart insurance package, the standalone term policy is one of the better term life insurance contracts available. 

It has tons of customization, it’s competitively priced, and the entirely online application is hard to pass up. It’s also one of the few companies offering no exam life insurance with $1 million in benefits.

You can compare rates yourself using the instant quotes tool on this page, then look for Assurity life insurance. 

How Abrams Insurance Solutions Can Help

It’s still always wise to shop the market, even if other life insurance options are less convenient than the Assurity term life insurance. 

We are a small group of independent insurance agents who can compare rates between 70+ life insurance companies to find the right one for your situation, whether that’s a term policy, coverage with health concerns, or you’re looking to build up cash value. 

Give us a call today at (888) 905-0333.