Last Updated: February 2020
If you’re considering purchasing life insurance from Prudential, you are in the right place. The article will review Prudential’s history, policies, conversion options, and show where Prudential life insurance is the most competitive.
We often recommend Prudential Life Insurance and have helped 100’s of people purchase a policy through them.
- Prudential Life Insurance Company History and Ratings
- Prudential Term Life Insurance Products
- Prudential Universal Life Insurance Products
- Benefits to Choosing Prudential Life Insurance
- Compare Prudential Life Insurance with Other Companies
When you’re shopping for insurance coverage, it can be difficult to find the best option for you. There are dozens of different types of plans that you can choose from and hundreds of companies that you can choose from. Most will have different policies or rates.
Life Insurance is Boring. Let’s Get To The Root Of It! Here are the key takeaways…
Prudential Life Insurance Company offers term life, universal life, variable life, & non-participating whole life policies. However, their most popular product is their term life insurance. Prudential has an A.M. Best rating of A+ (superior) & has been in the life insurance industry for 145 years.
Prudential Life Insurance Company History and Ratings
Prudential has been around since 1875 and has over $784 billion in assets under management. They were on Fortune Magazine’s 2010 list of “World’s most admired companies” and are the 2nd largest life insurer in the United States.
In 2012 Prudential bought Hartford Life Insurance, making it an even larger force in the industry.
Here are the ratings for Prudential Life Insurance:
- A.M. Best: “A+” (superior) rating
- Affordability Index: 9.3
- Ease of Applying: 9.5
- Customer Service: 9.6
- COMDEX Ranking: 90
A.M. Best is the industry benchmark for financial strength in the life insurance industry. The other three metrics are based on a number of factors including our industry knowledge of Prudential compared with other companies. The COMDEX ranking is a composite score that considers A.M. Best and other top ratings agencies.
Learn more about our process for reviewing life insurance companies here.
Prudential Term Life Insurance Products
Their most popular product is their term life insurance. They actually have 3 different term policies that we will review below.
Term Essential
This is where the bulk of Prudential’s term business is placed because it’s the least expensive and not much different than the other term products they offer.
- It’s available in 10, 15, 20 or 30-year term lengths.
- They offer rapid underwriting for amounts of less than $250,000.
- It allows you to convert to permanent coverage without proving your insurability.
This means no matter what your health condition is, you’ll be able to convert to a permanent policy by simply filling out some paperwork. View the image below for more information.
When you fill out the quote form on this page to see their rates, you’ll be looking at their Term Essential product.
Term Elite
This has the same benefits as Term Essential except you receive conversion credits. It’s more expensive than Term Essential and should only be purchased if you are planning to convert to a permanent policy within the first 5 years of the policy.
Below is a side by side comparison of the Term Essential and Term Elite.
If you are looking for term life insurance, be sure to compare Prudential’s rates with other top term life insurance companies such as MassMutual Life Insurance. Comparing rates will help you select the right policy for your needs.
WorkLife 65
This product is meant to protect you during your working years and expires at age 65.
This product is attractive for anyone under the age of 35 because the max term length on the market is a 30-year term. With WorkLife 65 you can get more than a 30-year term if you’re under age 35.
It comes with other benefits that Term Essential and Term Elite don’t have.
- Waiver of Premium for specific periods of disability and unemployment. Meaning you don’t have to pay premiums if you’re disabled or unemployed up to a specific time frame.
- Guaranteed conversion to any of Prudential’s permanent insurance policies with no evidence of insurability (as discussed previously).
For whole life, universal life or indexed life insurance Prudential has some great products and can send you illustrations and information regarding those upon request.
Prudential Universal Life Insurance Products
Prudential has many permanent life insurance options.
- PruLife Universal Protector offers guaranteed lifetime protection at very affordable rates.
- PruLife Universal Plus which offers the potential of cash value accumulation for those who are maxing out their retirement options.
- PruLife Index Advantage UL which offers cash value accumulation based on the performance of the S&P 500 Index with downside protection.
- PruLife SUL Protector is used for estate planning cases, wealth transfer planning and business transfers.
Hands down the most popular universal life insurance product we’re seeing consumers purchase is the PruLife Universal Protector.
This is because it’s guaranteed level premiums for the rest of your life at the lowest possible cost. There are guarantees built into the policy so it acts as a level term policy without an expiration date because Prudential can’t raise your rates or bring down your coverage amount like most other universal life insurance policies.
Benefits to Choosing Prudential Life Insurance
Prudential is one of our top 10 life insurance companies, in part, because of their rates.
Great Rates for Tobacco Users
Hands down, Prudential is the best company for smokeless tobacco users. Anyone who dips, chews or uses snuff can get non-smoker rates. This means that you’ll pay half the amount other life insurance companies would charge. Every other company on the market will give you smoker rates on life insurance coverage, with the exception of 1 other company and Prudential’s rates are better by far.
They Offer Cheap Life Insurance for Many Health Conditions
Prudential also has a liberal build chart and they are very aggressive with many health conditions like diabetes, prostate cancer risks and people with recent or multiple DUI’s. They’re great for lifestyle risks for private pilots and scuba divers as well.
They Offer Life Insurance for Active Military
They are the only company we know of that will write insurance on the military with active deployment orders. As long as the application is taken on US soil and accepted on US soil, then Prudential will take them as an ordinary risk.
They Have Low Rates for Higher Coverage Amounts
For amounts of $1 million of coverage and higher, they seem to be very competitive in many age bands.
Prudential uses your actual age to determine their rates which is a nice advantage if you’re within 6 months of your next birthday. Most life insurance companies on the market use your “age nearest”. So if you’re 52 years old, but your birthday is within the next 6 months, you will be considered 53 years old making your rates higher.
They Offer Great Conversion Options
Prudential has some of the best conversion options in the industry. Here’s how a Prudential term life insurance conversion stacks up to other carriers.
Compare Prudential Life Insurance with Other Companies
Before buying a life insurance policy, it is always best to compare other companies and rates. Prudential Life Insurance has many benefits and competitive rates.
In certain health risks, Prudential offers premiums half the amount as other life insurers. On top of that, their customer service is prompt and claims-paying abilities are solid.
However, we still recommend that your review Prudential Life Insurance against other carriers on the market. Every insurance company is going to offer you different rates and have different types of plans that you can choose from. We have reviews of over 50 life insurance companies and agencies here for you to use to compare rates with Prudential.
Here are some of the other best life insurance companies to consider along with Prudential.
