In the past three years, Nationwide has received remarkably few complaints from policyholders, which is easily the company’s most notable quality. Further, J.D. Power’s study of customer satisfaction data for U.S. Individual Life Insurance ranked second out of 21 life insurers. Thanks to these honors, Nationwide is in a powerful position. More than that, it offers a variety of policy options and substantial cash benefits.
Nearly a century has passed since Nationwide first opened its doors. The company sells a variety of term life insurance policies to its clients, including whole life, universal life, and variable universal life. What’s interesting is that, in some cases, you may not even need a medical exam to obtain one of these policies. As a result, the approval process is lightning fast. Most of the company’s policies also include three emergency death benefit riders at no extra cost. The policyholder can receive a portion of their death benefit while alive if diagnosed with a chronic, acute, or fatal disease. Nationwide has made our list of top life insurance providers due to its many great features.
Nationwide Life Insurance
Maximum issue age for 10-year term life: 70
AM Best Financial Strength Rating: A+ (Superior)
Life insurance riders available: Children’s term insurance, Premium waiver
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Company's Overview
Established in 1925, Nationwide has grown to become a global leader in financial services. Life, auto, home, renter’s, and animal insurance are just a few products and services they provide. Columbus, Ohio, is home to the company’s administrative offices.
Nationwide Mutual Group, ranked as the nation’s tenth largest property and casualty insurer by market share by the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I), provides banking and financial planning services in addition to a wide variety of insurance options, including those for automobiles, homes, and lives. During our annual Bankrate Awards, Bankrate recognized Nationwide, based in Columbus, Ohio, as the best insurance provider for expensive homes and universal life policies. Nationwide provides various insurance options to help secure your financial future and valuable possessions.
Policies Available
With the exception of simplified whole life, all of the below policies come with free chronic, critical, and terminal illness riders. With the exception of simplified real life, all of the policies listed below can be underwritten using Nationwide’s Intelligent Underwriting system, which means that healthy applicants up to the age of 50 can get coverage of up to $5 million without having to take a medical exam. People in good health up to the age of 60 may get $1 million in coverage without medical underwriting.
Term Life Insurance
If the insured dies within the policy’s term, which could be 20 years, in this case, the beneficiaries will receive the policy’s death benefit in the amount specified in the policy. Term life insurance, as opposed to permanent life insurance, typically has no value beyond the death benefit and no savings component.
Guaranteed Level Term
All Nationwide’s life insurance policies fall under this category of term life. Standard to all term policies is a guaranteed death benefit, and a “level term” policy means the premium does not change during the policy’s term.
Ten-, fifteen-, twenty-, and thirty-year terms are available from nationwide. Any time before the end of the period or after you turn 65, whichever comes first, you can convert your policy to permanent coverage without reapplying.
The conversion period is as long as the policy is in effect, which is a nice perk given that some insurance providers, for example, only allow conversions within the first ten years. All Nationwide’s Term policies come standard with coverage for chronic, critical, and terminal illness benefits at no extra cost.
Whole Life Insurance
Unlike term life insurance, the cash value of whole life insurance accumulates over the policyholder’s lifetime. As long as premiums are kept current, the cash value of the policy will remain constant each year at an agreed-upon amount known in advance.
Whole Life 100 and 20-Pay Whole Life
Nationwide’s conventional whole life insurance policy offers two premium payment terms: 20 years or until age 100. Those under the age of 80 can apply for Nationwide’s traditional whole-life policies, which come with free chronic illness, critical illness, and terminal illness riders.
Universal Life Insurance
As with universal life insurance, the cash value in a universal life policy grows over time. But the cash value grows at a rate determined by the market, and premiums can be adjusted to fit your budget.
No-Lapse Guarantee UL II
You can rest assured that your coverage will remain effective as long as you continue to pay the no-lapse premium for Nationwide’s UL product. In contrast to a whole-life policy, the cash value of a UL policy may be credited with varying amounts every year depending on interest rate environments. It’s possible that you’ll have to pay more each month to keep up with the insurance premium if the cash value doesn’t grow as fast as expected. In that case, the policy might not renew. If policy cash value growth isn’t enough to keep paying premiums, the no-lapse provision will.
All applicants younger than 85 years old will have their policies automatically upgraded to include critical illness, chronic illness, and terminal illness riders. You can also include a long-term care rider, which isn’t an option with whole-life insurance.
Variable Life Insurance
The cash value of a policy with variable life insurance can be invested in various sub-accounts that function similarly to mutual funds. The cash value of the subaccounts rises and falls in accordance with the performance of the underlying stock portfolio. Among the many kinds of life insurance available, variable life is the most precarious.
All applicants younger than 85 years old will have their policies automatically upgraded to include critical illness, chronic illness, and terminal illness riders. You can also include a long-term care rider, which isn’t an option with whole-life insurance.
Nationwide provides three distinct VUL options:
- VUL Accumulator: In addition to providing a death benefit, the cash value can be used to grow tax-free and provide a steady stream of retirement income.
- VUL Protector: Though it’s also a Variable Universal Life product, this policy takes a more moderate stance than the Accumulator. It allows you to directly invest in the market while still receiving a guaranteed death benefit.
- Advisory VUL: Investments can be managed on your behalf by a registered investment advisor (RIA) or fee-only financial advisor.
Indexed Universal Life Insurance
A subset of universal life insurance, indexed policies share some benefits of rising stock markets without directly exposing policyholders to those gains. The cash value growth is pegged to that of a stock market index, like the S&P 500, with earnings caps and floors in place. These policies are not as high-risk as variable life insurance. However, they still risk losing value if market gains aren’t enough to cover policy expenses, which could potentially reduce or eliminate the death benefit.
These indexed policies are available from Nationwide, and both accounts use strategies based on the S&P 500, NASDAQ-100, and Dow Jones Industrial Average:
IUL Accumulator II 2020: Compared to IUL Protector II 2020, it provides a higher return on cash value.
IUL Protector II 2020: Favors low-cost life insurance that offers a death benefit and a cash value that can grow, but not as much as IUL Accumulator II 2020.
Survivorship IUL 2020: Death benefit protection and the opportunity for cash value growth are offered by this second-to-die policy, which pays out upon the death of the 2nd insured, such as a spouse.
Final Expense or Burial Insurance
A final expense policy, also known as burial or funeral insurance, is a form of permanent life insurance that does not require a medical exam and typically does not even ask about the insured’s health. There is a high premium attached to these policies because the death benefit is so tiny.
Simplified Whole Life
Existing and prospective Nationwide auto and homeowners policyholders, as well as certain members of their families, are eligible to apply for a death benefit of up to $50,000 through the company’s simplified whole-life insurance program. You can avoid a complete medical exam and get covered quickly by answering just a few questions about your health in the online application for this policy. For the first two years of the policy, the death benefit is “graded,” meaning that if you pass away from natural causes while the policy is still active, your beneficiaries will receive the sum of the premiums you are required to pay into the policy plus 7 %.
Available Riders
An extensive selection of riders is available from Nationwide. Not all possible uses are listed here, but the ones below are among the most typical.
- Chronic illness benefit: If you become permanently unable to perform two or more activities of daily living, you may qualify for an early release of up to 20% of your death benefit (ADLs).
- Critical illness benefit: Part of your death benefit may be paid out sooner if you are diagnosed with a critical illness like cancer or a heart attack.
- Terminal illness benefit: When a terminal illness is diagnosed with a prognosis of 12 months or less to live, the beneficiary is eligible to receive a portion of the death benefit early.
- Long-term care rider: This rider can be added to any of Nationwide’s universal life or variable universal life policies and can be used to cover long-term care expenses.
- Accidental death benefit rider: If your death results from an accident, this rider will pay out an additional sum in addition to the death benefit provided by your policy.
- Children’s term insurance rider: If any of your children—including stepchildren and adopted children—dies before you do, this rider will pay out a death benefit.
- Guaranteed insurability benefits the rider: Up until you turn 40, you can use this rider to boost your death benefit if you get married or have a child (including through adoption).
- Waiver of premium rider: After the six-month waiting period, your premiums will be forgiven if you become disabled.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Extremely happy customers
- Various kinds of insurance coverage
- Most policies provide one of three types of death benefits
- Life insurance coverage of up to $5 million with no medical exams
- Accepts payments via credit card
Cons
- There isn’t any online messaging support
- Existing policyholders are the only ones who can purchase these simplified whole life policies.
Pros Clarified
- Extremely happy customers: One of the main reasons we chose Nationwide as the best life insurance provider of 2022 is their dedication to customer satisfaction. When it comes to customer satisfaction, Nationwide ranks second among the 21 companies surveyed by J.D. Power for their 2021 U.S. Individual Life Insurance Study. Comparatively few complaints were filed against it by customers, ranking it in the top quarter of the 91 businesses we looked at.
- Various kinds of insurance coverage: Perhaps there is a policy type available from Nationwide for everyone. We looked into six common policy types, including term, whole life, universal life (UL), indexed UL, variable UL, and final expense, and found that Nationwide offers them all. If you’re interested in working with the firm but aren’t sure which policy best suits your needs, this is good to know.
- Most policies provide one of three types of death benefits: Common riders included in Nationwide policies at no extra cost are those covering chronic, critical, and terminal illness. In the event that you are diagnosed with one of the aforementioned conditions, these riders will allow you to receive a portion of your death benefit sooner. When compared to the 91 other companies we looked at, only 10 of them provide all three living benefits without any additional premiums. Our top-ranked Nationwide is the only major insurer to provide all three typically.
- Life insurance coverage of up to $5 million with no medical exams: A policy’s death benefit from Nationwide can be as high as $100,000 with no health questions asked. Although you don’t need a medical exam to qualify for no-med life insurance, the maximum death benefit offered by many providers is still well short of $1 million.
- Accepts payments via credit card: If you’re looking for an insurance company that accepts credit card payments, look no further than Nationwide. If your income is unpredictable and you have a policy that could lapse if you missed a payment, this provision could be lifesaving.
Cons Clarified
- There isn’t any online messaging support: Live chat is not available on the Nationwide website; customers must instead submit inquiries via phone or email. While this is a drawback, life insurance websites do not typically offer live chat.
- Existing policyholders are the only ones who can purchase these simplified whole life policies: If you already have an auto or home insurance policy with Nationwide, you may be eligible for its simplified issue whole life policy. To qualify for this type of policy, an applicant needs to have health problems but wants to avoid a medical exam and receive a death benefit of less than $50,000 by answering a few health questions.
Complaint Index
The NAIC Complaint Index is a useful metric developed by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) from consumer complaints lodged against insurance providers. The higher the index value, the more complaints customers have had against that company compared to what would be expected for a business of that size.
In the complaint index, 1 represents the baseline; thus, if a company’s index is less than 1, it has received a lower number of complaints than would be expected. There were more complaints submitted to the company than anticipated if the value is greater than 1.0. A 2.0 index, for instance, indicates that twice as many complaints were received as would have been expected by the company.
The NAIC complaint index for 2020–2021 is only 0.05, which is extremely low. As a result, the company received significantly fewer complaints than would be typical for an organization of its size.
Third-Party Ratings
AM Best’s Financial Strength Ratings were used to determine an organization’s viability. Over 16,000 insurance companies around the world have been evaluated by AM Best, an independent credit rating agency, to determine how likely they are to be able to fulfill their ongoing insurance obligations. The AM Best rating scale goes from A++ to D.
Due to the long-term nature and potentially high value of a life insurance policy, the insurance company must be financially stable enough to pay the beneficiaries named in the policy in the event of your death. This company has an A+ from AM Best. Because of its “superior” ability to meet its ongoing insurance obligations, AM Best has awarded Nationwide its a second-highest rating (i.e., pay claims).
Similarly, a J.D. Power study found that Nationwide customers were delighted. Among the 21 companies evaluated in the 2021 J.D. Power Individual Life Insurance Study, it ranked second with 813 out of a possible 1,000-points total, placing it above the industry average of 776.
Customer Service
You can reach Nationwide’s support staff at 1-800-848-6331 between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET Saturday. You can also send an email by filling out a form on the company’s website or finding a local Nationwide agent. While live chat with a representative is unavailable, the company employs a chatbot that occasionally appears and might be able to help you out. (Insurance companies are lagging behind other industries in adopting live chat.)
Is Nationwidel Life Insurance A Worth Insurance to Get?
Regarding life insurance, Nationwide is our top pick for several reasons, including its extensive free benefits, stellar customer service, rock-solid financial stability, and easy no-exam application procedure for coverage amounts up to $5 million. They have one of the most comprehensive offerings of life insurance products, and they provide a range all over the country. Picking Nationwide for your life insurance requirements is probably a safe bet.
Conclusion
Among the many reasons that make Nationwide a leading insurance provider are the company’s extensive array of products and services, its high levels of coverage with no medical exam requirements, its excellent track record with clients, and its generous living benefits. Find what you’re looking for here: permanent or term life insurance with built-in accelerated death benefit riders for chronic, critical, and terminal illness. And if excellent customer service is your top priority, Nationwide is where you need to be.
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Source: Investopedia