Principal Life Insurance Review for 2020

Life insurance is designed to protect those who depend upon you so that there are no sudden financial losses in the event of your death.

Principal Life has received a superior rating from A.M. Best.  They also are known for their customer service, having obtained a high J.D. Power Rating, placing them as one of the best life insurance companies in terms of customer service.

Table of Contents:

• About Principal Life Insurance
• Pros & Cons
• Term vs. Permanent
• Term Life Insurance Options
• Term Life Insurance Riders
• How to Apply for Term Life
• Permanent Life Insurance Options
• Life Insurance for Smokers with Principal

About Principal Life Insurance

Principal Financial Life Insurance was founded in 1879 and today continues to be a global Investment Management leader. A company helps individuals and companies all around the world to build and protect assets and life insurance policies.

They have over $674 billion dollars in assets and they serve over 22 million clients throughout the world.

Currently, they have offices in over 19 countries and they employ over 14,000 employees around the world, and 10,000 employees in the United States alone.

Deciding on which plan is best for you requires reviewing a personal situation and figuring out which features you need.

Principal Life offers a handful of features for each of their two main types of life insurance policies, term and permanent.

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Pros & Cons of Principal Financial

Term vs. Permanent Life Insurance

Term Life Insurance

Term life insurance offers life insurance coverage in terms, usually lasting 10 to 30 years in 5 year increments. This type of coverage has lower monthly premiums than permanent life insurance, but no opportunity to build cash value over time.

However, term life insurance policies usually come with conversion riders, which allow policyholders to convert their term life insurance policy to a whole life insurance policy.

Permanent Life Insurance

Permanent life insurance offers life insurance that lasts your entire life (usually to age 121). With these policies, it is especially important to lock in low rates when you are younger because the rates become very expensive as you get older.

Permanent life insurance offers cash value accumulation over the life of the policy. This cash value can be borrowed against, on a tax-free basis, and is also paid out with the death benefit.

These types of policies are best for people who are looking to build an estate or a trust, or who want to leverage life insurance as an investment vehicle.

Principal Term Life Insurance Policies

The policy options for term policies include one year, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, or 30 years. They have a competitive underwriting policy specifically for hire policy amounts which are listed at over $1,000,000.

Principal Life also offers competitive underwriting for applicants who are between 35 and 55 years old. If you have a healthy lifestyle you can take advantage of their healthy lifestyle credit program which improves your underwriting class based on your activities.

Term Life Insurance Policy Riders

Term Conversion Rider

The term conversion rider allows you to convert your term life insurance policy into a permanent life insurance policy before the end of the term.

Child Protection Rider

The child protection rider allows you to protect all of your eligible children who are under the age of 18 with a life insurance policy under yours.

Disability Income

Disability income rider allows you to cease payments on your premiums for a fixed amount of time if you become totally disabled from a qualifying event.

Accelerated Death Benefit

Accelerated death benefit rider allows you to receive a portion of your total death benefit should you be diagnosed with a qualifying terminal illness.

How to apply for Principal Term Life Insurance

When you apply for a term policy you can do so online with a very simple application process. Your approval will be completed within an average of 15 days and if you choose to take advantage of the issue free medical history application because you don’t have any issues, you will be put on a fast-track for processing your paperwork.

For their term policies, you can get temporary coverage of to $1,000,000. If you choose to pay annually rather than monthly you get a 5% discount. At the end of the term or once you reach 70 years old you can convert the policy into a guaranteed, permanent life insurance plan.

Principal’s term life insurance policies are level which means that your premium remains the same for the duration of the term and will not increase. They are slightly less expensive compared to permanent policies, but they offer the same amount of death benefit coverage.

As the policyholder, you can choose to cancel the policy at any time and it is a no-risk obligation.

Principal Permanent Life Insurance Policies

Principal offers three types of permanent life insurance policies:

1. Universal life insurance
2. Variable universal life insurance
3. Survivorship life insurance

Universal Life Insurance

The universal and the variable universal life insurance policies offer users the flexibility to adjust the premiums as needed and to change the death benefit as needed.

This is an ideal solution for people whose financial needs might change throughout the course of their life. Younger applicants might need higher coverage at the time of the application in order to provide financial means for things like a mortgage, a car loan, or to cover children who are still living at home.

Later in life, your needs for life insurance might drop substantially as these things are paid off and children no longer live at home.

Variable Universal Life Insurance

The variable universal life insurance policy has a better opportunity for cash value gross because it is tied to underlying Investments. If those underlying Investments perform poorly there is a potential for financial loss.

Those who do not want to take advantage of the extra cash value, but the inherent risk simultaneously should consider one of the other options. Those who choose to use a life insurance policy as a financial tool especially to gain extra cash value to supplement retirement income along the way might strongly consider investigating this option with a financial advisor.

Survivorship Life Insurance

The survivorship life insurance policy is designed to cover two people under a single policy, usually a married couple. The surviving individual receives a death benefit individual passes away.

Principal Life Insurance for Smokers and Diabetics

Principal life insurance company is well above average for people who have a family history of health problems. They provide excellent coverage for clients who have recently lost weight.

They also go above and beyond to provide excellent coverage at affordable rates for people with high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

They do very well for those who suffer from sleep apnea or those who have recently had a heart attack. People who have diabetes or who are smokers or recently quit smoking will still receive spot-on favorability for underwriting classes with this company whereas with other companies the rates might be substandard.

If you are a smoker or you have diabetes you can apply given your current health levels and see if you qualify for the preferred underwriting class.

Conversely, there are options for term policies that are more limited and still give you a coverage but do not require a medical exam. These will still ask for minimum medical questions, but you will be able to enjoy favorable coverage where other companies might charge more.