5 Best Whole Life Insurance Companies for January 2023
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If you’re looking to treat your life insurance policy as a cash asset, you might be in the market for a whole life insurance policy. Along with providing a payout to your loved ones when you die, these policies build cash value over time at a set interest rate.
To create this list of the best whole life insurance companies, our experts focused on financially strong insurers with low levels of customer complaints. We then honed in on important features of whole life insurance policies, such as riders, the potential to earn dividends and the amount of coverage you can buy.
» MORE: Whole life insurance definition
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The best whole life insurance companies of January 2023
NerdWallet rates insurers at the company level, not the policy level. This means our star rating reflects the company as a whole, and not its whole life insurance policies specifically. | |
How we ranked the top life insurers
NerdWallet’s life insurance ratings are based on consumer experience, complaint index scores from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners for individual life insurance, and weighted averages of financial strength ratings, which indicate a company’s ability to pay future claims. Within the consumer experience category, we consider ease of communication and website transparency, which looks at the depth of policy details available online. To calculate each insurer’s rating, we adjusted the scores to a curved 5-point scale.
These ratings are a guide, but we encourage you to shop around and compare life insurance quotes from several companies to find the best rate for you. NerdWallet does not receive compensation for any reviews.
» MORE: Best life insurance companies
Best whole life insurance policies for 2023
Learn more about each company in our list by reading the brief summaries below and checking out the NerdWallet review links.
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Guardian: Best for applicants living with HIV
MassMutual: Best for cash value growth
Northwestern Mutual: Best for blended term
New York Life: Best for rider options
State Farm Life: Best for customer satisfaction
Guardian Life
Financial strength rating
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Guardian Life
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
NAIC complaints
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Company overview: With Guardian’s whole life coverage, you can choose a policy with level premiums, or a “limited payment” policy that allows you to pay off your policy in 10, 15 or 20 years. After that, no premiums are required to keep your coverage. You can choose from a range of riders, such as a disability waiver of premium, long-term care and an index participation feature — or IPF — rider. The IPF rider allows you to link a portion of your cash value to the performance of the S&P 500 Price Return Index, and any profits are paid out in dividends.
The company also offers life insurance for people living with HIV. To qualify for these term and whole life policies, you must prove you’re under a specialist’s care and successfully receiving antiretroviral therapy.
While Guardian doesn’t guarantee dividends, it has paid them out to its permanent policyholders every year since 1868, and is set to pay $1.26 billion in 2023, the highest payout in the company’s history.
» Read the full review: Guardian life insurance
MassMutual
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
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MassMutual
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
NAIC complaints
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Company overview: Depending on your policy, you might be able to customize your coverage with various riders. These include a long-term care rider, chronic illness rider and a yearly term purchase rider, which allows you to direct your dividend payments toward a term life insurance policy.
As a permanent policyholder, you’re eligible to receive dividends based on the insurer’s profits. MassMutual estimates it will pay out almost $1.9 billion to its permanent policyholders in 2023.
» Read the full review: MassMutual life insurance
Northwestern Mutual
Financial strength rating
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Northwestern Mutual
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
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Company overview: Northwestern Mutual’s whole life insurance policy comes with various payment options. You can choose to pay premiums for 15, 20 or 25 years, or until you reach age 65 or 100. Plus, you may have the option to blend term life with your policy to lower the premiums, while maintaining permanent coverage.
To enhance your coverage, you can add riders to your policy, such as an accelerated death benefit that pays out a portion of your payout if you need long-term care. There’s also an additional purchase benefit rider, which lets you increase your coverage at a later date without taking another life insurance medical exam. Northwestern Mutual is a mutual company, one of the largest individual life insurers in the U.S., and it is set to pay out $6.8 billion in dividends in 2023.
» Read the full review: Northwestern Mutual life insurance
New York Life
Financial strength rating
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New York Life
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
NAIC complaints
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Company overview: New York Life’s custom whole life policy offers flexibility with premium payments. You can opt to pay off your policy in as little as five years, or schedule the timing and amount of your payments to suit you.
The insurer also offers a variety of life insurance riders, such as a chronic care rider, waiver of premium rider and accelerated death benefit.
As a mutual company, New York Life is set to pay out $2 billion in dividends to its policyholders in 2023.
» Read the full review: New York Life insurance
State Farm
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
NAIC complaints
Policies offered
State Farm
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
NAIC complaints
Policies offered
Company overview: State Farm’s standard whole life policy has level premiums, which means you’ll pay the same amount each month. But if you’d like to adjust when and how much you pay, you can buy a single premium or limited payment policy.
If you’re healthy, age 18 to 50 and applying for a policy worth $100,000 to $1 million, State Farm might fast-track your application and issue your policy without the need for a medical exam. If you purely want to cover your own funeral, burial and end-of-life expenses, the insurer offers a final expense policy to applicants ages 50 to 80 (50 to 75 in New York). Policy features aside, State Farm leads J.D. Power’s list of life insurers with the best customer satisfaction.
» Read the full review: State Farm life insurance
Alternatives to the best whole life insurance
Traditional term life insurance is typically sufficient for most people. Term life, which doesn’t build cash value, is much less expensive than whole life insurance. A term life policy lasts a set number of years, and by the time it expires, you may no longer need life insurance.
If you’re certain you want lifelong coverage, you may also want to consider other types of permanent life insurance. Some of the options are:
Universal life insurance, which gives you flexibility to adjust your premiums and death benefit.
Indexed universal life insurance, a type of universal life that’s tied to a stock index such as the S&P 500.
Variable life insurance, which lets you choose how to invest your policy’s cash value.
More about whole life insurance
Learn more about whole life policies before you buy. Here are a few resources to help you understand your options.
Insurer complaints methodology
NerdWallet examined complaints received by state insurance regulators and reported to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in 2019-2021. To assess how insurers compare to one another, the NAIC calculates a complaint index each year for each subsidiary, measuring its share of total complaints relative to its size, or share of total premiums in the industry. To evaluate a company’s complaint history, NerdWallet calculated a similar index for each insurer, weighted by market shares of each subsidiary, over the three-year period. NerdWallet conducts its data analysis and reaches conclusions independently and without the endorsement of the NAIC. Ratios are determined separately for auto, home (including renters and condo) and life insurance.
