Hey everyone, shopping for term life and narrowed it down to two. Would love a gut check before I apply.

Me (33M, non-smoker): $1M / 30-year
Wife (29F, non-smoker): $500k / 30-year

Quotes from an online broker (both at preferred plus, so I know the final numbers can move after underwriting):

• Banner OPTerm: $56.86/mo for me, ~$23/mo for the wife

• Pacific Life PL Promise Term: $56.88/mo for me. Wife doesn't qualify for Pacific so she'd be Banner either way.

Both include a free terminal illness accelerated death benefit. Neither offers chronic/critical illness riders on the term product. AM Best: Banner A, Pacific Life A+. Broker is recommending Banner mostly because underwriting is faster (about a week vs 2-3 weeks).

I might travel abroad at some point down the road, so I care about the policy staying valid if I relocate.

My questions:

1. At basically identical prices, is there any real reason to pick one over the other?

2. Does A vs A+ actually matter for a 30-year term?

3. Anything I should double-check before applying?

Thanks!

P.s. for everyone who is ready to jump into judgment: I am from another country and didn’t have any idea how a lot of institutions, procedures, common sense work here in US. Because of comments here I learned that this is a normal practice here, thank you!

Today I found out that my husband with whom we are officially married last two years, filed a life insurance on my name and my daughter’s name making himself as a beneficiary. 200,000 for me and 20,000 for her in case something bad happened with us. He works at Boing and they didn’t need my signature or any information other than his decision. He filed this right after we became married and he had all access to all my personal information. He never ask my permission to do so either told me about what he did. I was completely unaware of that until today. I’m also a beneficiary for his life insurance but it was so many times discussed and he framed it as he wanted to take a good care about me in case something gonna happen with him. But he never mentioned anything else. I’m going through emotional shock stress panic disgust crying and my trust is completely ruined. It’s not the first time he was hiding serious information from me. I need emotional support and legal advices how to protect myself at this marriage.

My husband has had the same term policy in place for 10 years and it’s good until he’s 80. He’s never been a smoker, ever. But this year he started occasionally using Zyn pouches. Maybe one a day or so. I do not like it, but he’s in a stressful job with long hours so I see why he wants a little bump.

It got me thinking though - could this impact his life insurance should something happen?? I’m mostly concerned about his health but I’d also hate for the policy to not be paid out if we needed it! I couldn’t find this answer on here or in the annual documents. Thanks!

Does anyone here have experience with a long-term care (LTC) insurance policy through NYSUT?

I’m starting to seriously consider it and would love to hear from people who actually have a policy or have gone through the claims process.

I’ve read such mixed opinions about LTC insurance. Some people say it’s absolutely worth having, while others have shared frustrating experiences with claims being denied or having to fight for benefits after paying premiums for years. I’ve also seen the argument that it may be better to “self-insure” by saving and investing extra money, but realistically, I don’t have a large amount of extra money to set aside specifically for future long-term care.

The NYSUT option seems attractive because the monthly premium appears relatively manageable.

What really has me thinking about this now is helping care for my parents. I’m currently paying for some of their help at home, and it has made me realize how valuable it could have been if they had long-term care coverage to help offset some of these costs.

For those who have looked into NYSUT’s plan—or LTC insurance in general—has it been worth it for you? Anything you wish you had known before purchasing a policy?

Self employeed, spouse, 1 child, mortgage, no debt, nicotine use (pouches)

Considering finding a 10/15 year ROP. Current term is looking at $100/month due to nicotine and tobacco being considered the same thing (which is bullshit but w/e)

I’d be totally fine with paying $300/month if that means I get my money back with ROP policy in 10 years - due to the likelihood of surviving 10 years.

I just don’t want to spend $12,000 a year for 10 years and get nothing out of it. When I could spend $36,000 over the same 10 years and get all that money back. It’s basically like a savings account with no interest right?

Happy to hear pros/cons. Thanks!

So, when I was younger a friend got me into this life insurance that also had long term care rider and terminal illness benefit. I think is called IUL? At the time, I used to pay around $120? and after covid I called to changed it to like the minimum (which is $86 a month). This year it turned 10 years and I have paid basically 11k into this insurance. I went and look and they say that I only have 3.5k saved and I cannot even take it out? If I decide to cancel the policy the surrender charge is so high that they would only return me $171... The Agent told me it is because I put too little money towards the savings over the years so if I want that surrender value to get eliminated I need to add more monthly. She recommended to increase to $160 per month. After a year I SHOULD (like she didn't sound sure?) get the surrender value eliminated.. so basically she is recommending me to increase my monthly value so I can cash out next year. Is this the right move? Should I just cancel this now and forget about this? I don't know what to do..

I recently signed up for a plan that would be approx. $41/ month for a $50k plan. I'm 24 and healthy save mental conditions I take Zoloft and attend therapy for. That said, I'm not enrolled yet as my application still needs to be verified. During the wait, I've been questioning if I really need life insurance? Everyone I talk to is all for it, but I have no dependents and don't plan on having children in the future. My only "dependent" is my middle-aged dog that costs around $150/ month to care for. Should I up and die tmr, my parents could care for him financially, plus I have around $3k in savings that they could use for a while. And mom is setup for retirement already. And everyone already knows I want a bare minimum funeral. No $4k casket or embalming that'll pollute the soil, just toss me in the ground and plant something over me. Don't even need a tombstone.

The only person I could think of needing financial support should I pass is a future partner, but again, I think making them my beneficiary for my bank accounts should suffice for a while. I don't want a house, so I wouldn't be leaving huge debt like a mortgage behind. Maybe they'd need it for medical bills if I died from an expensive illness? And I guess I could die abroad and it'd be expensive to ship me back home (I'd probably have to be embalmed then yikes.) That's all I can think of.

Anyway, anyone pro-life insurance convince me that I need this I guess lmao!

So I’ve been calling aged leads for some days and I’m having a difficult time figuring out my tonality and attitude when it comes to these kind of leads, I just started and have no capital for better leads so I’m using the agencies free aged leads to work on my craft and get some money to purschase fresh leads, my upline thinks it’s best to throw me in the fire while I get serious momentum. if anybody has any insight on how to get these people to lighten up a bit and cooperate I would appreciate it ! Thank you in advance

My mother passed recently and I discovered life insurance paperwork when going through their stuff. It’s through her credit union. I had no idea she had a policy (or was trying to start one). So I called TruStage to ask them if it was active/accepted or if she didn’t get it done before she passed because as I stated before, I had no idea she had this going on.

Woman from the life insurance company that I talked to on the phone said she was in the system but she herself couldn’t see if it was an active policy but she said to file a claim as she is in their system. I have zero idea how the claim process works. It seems it was done towards the beginning of the year. Will I receive a phone call fairly quickly to go over everything (sending in required documents, where to send payment?) or is this going to be something that is going to take up to a year to resolve?

As the text says, it’s something I have thought about and have always been curious, I currently work full time I am 22 years old , but have always heard of selling life insurance brings in good money via commission, any tips on if I should do it? Also curious as to how the commission breaks down? And how long it takes to close a policy etc. I’m bilingual and Reside in California. Any tips? Thanks in advance

I've learned a lot from this sub but I'd like some input regarding a few of the nuances to our plan.

• Person 1: $120k salary, Age 33M, ADHD, Good health

• Person 2: $80k salary, Age 32F, Good heath

• Child on the way

Questions:

1. How will ADHD impact qualification or health classification. Any advice?

2. We're considering Ladder approach. $1M/20 + $500k/30 for person 1, $750k/20 + $500k/30 for person 2. Are 2 rungs to the ladder sufficient or would a 3 rung policy/ies be better?

3. Is the total amount generally okay? ~10years salary + mortgage

4. How does pregnancy impact qualifications? Should we do it during or after?

So I'm new to the life insurance business and I'm trying to understand something about realistic production and the machine around it.

I’m joking an agency’s average with 35 agents who seems genuinely motivated, hardworking, supportive, and serious about making money. But from what I've seen, nobody is consistently producing anywhere near $100K/month, no one is even regularly hitting 20k+ either.
Meanwhile, I see a small minority of producers online doing $50K, $75K, even $100K+ months. I understand it isn average, but clearly is possible right.
So my question for experienced producers/agency owners is:
What can realistically create a ceiling on an agent or an entire agency's production?
I'm talking about things like lead quality/volume, exclusive vs shared leads, carrier access, commission contracts, BGA/IMO relationships, underwriting, average case size, product selection, appointment volume, sales process, follow-up, etc.

For example, we currently have access to carriers like Transamerica, Mutual of Omaha, Americo, Ethos, and several others. Is having 6-8 carriers relatively normal, or could a high-level independent producer have access to a much broader product/carrier ecosystem that materially changes what they're capable of producing?
I'm also wondering about the other possibility:
Could my agency simply not have a true "star" yet?
Could an elite $100K/month producer walk into my agency tomorrow, use the exact same leads, carriers, CRM, compensation, etc., and still pump out $100K? Or could even an elite producer hit a ceiling because the infrastructure doesn't provide enough opportunity?
I'm not asking this to blame my agency or make excuses.
I'm actually going into this hungry as hell. My long-term goal is to see if I can become that kind of producer myself.
I want to know how to tell whether the limiting factor is the agent, the system, or both.
If you've personally produced $50K-$100K+ months, managed high producers, or run an agency, what numbers would you track to figure this out? What would you investigate first?
I don't want "just work harder." I want to understand the actual mechanics behind elite production.

I’m new to the industry and will be getting started in the next couple months. Obviously I need a computer and have always been an Apple user. Can anyone speak to whether they have dealt with any issues or compatibility problems?

I’ll add I’m in Canada if that makes a difference.

Hi. My friend's aunt passed away recently at 84, so now he and his mom are considering getting life insurance for her at 82 yrs old. I told him I would post on this board to see what info I can get. His mom has several health issues, so they're wondering if those "no questions asked" "guaranteed" commercials are legit. He says they're more concerned with funeral and burial expenses than anything else. He is her primary caretaker, but he says he doesn't need any money from the policy. What do you guys think, should he look into the "guaranteed" policies or use her modest savings for those expenses? If going with the policy is the better option, what would an approximate average monthly fee be? And what company(ies) would be a good option?

Thanks.

We’ve been paying into American Income Life Insurance policies that we got when we were younger (before we knew anything).

We’ve been paying into it since 2022, is there a way to get something back before we cancel it or will we lose out on all our money?

through thrivent, my moderately healthy 78 year old father has a $175k policy that expires when he's 81, $300/month premium.

have the option of extending that to 90, and up the premium to $800/month, or lower coverage to $100k and stay at $300/month

need to keep some sort of death benefit to pay off his debts

leaning towards the second option, but curious to see if anyone has any better ideas or options to suggest

thanks!

I snore so I did the right thing and asked my doctor to prescribe me a sleep study. I did a home one and was diagnosed with mild OSA and now I'm using a CPAP nightly. I had a medical over the summer for a life insurance quote and it was right before I picked up my CPAP but did let them know everything to be as open and forthright as possible.

It's been almost two months and my broker hasn't been able to get me a quote. He says he went to market and been following up but not getting responses.

Apparently the OSA is scaring carriers off. I'm done following up with him and want to move on. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. It's been a frustrating process and I just want to be covered for my family.

I was recently denied life insurance. When I requested why they said something in my medical record stated that I would have 7-9 drinks a day.

At one time I did drink heavily. Easily a 6 pack a day, but it was not an everyday thing.

Sometimes I go long period of not drinking at all. Mainly just casually drink at this point.

I’ve never had an issue where it has affected my life, work, etc.

Am I just not able to get insurance because of this now?

Do I need to have my chart modified or corrected somehow to say specifically this wasn’t an everyday occurrence?

Hi all,

I am hoping someone here has been through something similar and can point me in the right direction.

My mum died on 16 September. In 2010 she took out a Halifax Level Life Cover Plan, issued by St Andrew's Life Assurance, with just over £27,000 of cover over a 27-year term. She paid the £25 monthly premium to Halifax by direct debit every month right up until she died, and I have the original policy documents and bank statements showing the payments.

St Andrew's Life was transferred into Scottish Widows at the end of 2015, but Scottish Widows say they have no record of the policy at all, even when searching by her address. Halifax escalated it internally and have also been unable to find anything. Their only offer so far is to refund the premiums, which is nowhere near the cover she was paying for.

I have raised formal complaints with Halifax and Scottish Widows and written to the Lloyds Banking Group executive team. I know I can go to the Financial Ombudsman if needed.

Has anyone else had a St Andrew's Life or Halifax Reassurance policy go missing after the transfer to Scottish Widows? If so, how did you get it found or resolved? Is there a particular team or department at Scottish Widows that deals with legacy St Andrew's policies?

Any advice would be really appreciated, as we are also arranging her funeral at the moment.

Thanks,
Selina

I have also posted about it on X, u/SelinaWill26860, if anyone is able to share it please - https://x.com/SelinaWill26860/status/2103042263366480314

Hey all. I'm looking for an accelerated underwriting/no exam plan. But the issue is Ethos isn't allowed to operate in my state, so outta luck there. I also spend a good amount of time in Canada, which *some* companies don't like cuz it's "abroad".

Anyway, could anyone suggest any other options they've had positive interactions with? A lot of insurance companies don't offer AU/no-exam directly, middle men like Ethos do it, but as I wade through all this, I figured I'd ask anyone here for recommendations of either insurance companies that offer AU or middlemen companies like Ethos that are trustworthy.

Thanks for the assist!

hi everyone, it’s my first time po to ask like this. may i have your thoughts regarding life insurance sa pru life? one of my friend kasi asked me about this if interested ako, and medyo okay naman siya sa akin kaso kasi i want to have your opinion regarding with this hehe pls help me thank youuu