Guardian Life Insurance Review 2026

Guardian is a standout for customer satisfaction and offers unique coverage for certain health conditions. And as a mutual company, Guardian Life Insurance Company of America has paid dividends to eligible policyholders yearly since 1868, and will pay out $1.7 billion in 2026[1].

Guardian Life earned 5 stars out of 5 for overall performance. NerdWallet’s ratings are determined by our editorial team. The scoring formula takes into account consumer experience, complaint data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and financial strength ratings.

Based on these ratings, Guardian is among NerdWallet’s best life insurance companies for 2026. It also earned a spot on our 2026 lists in the following categories:

• Best term life insurance.

• Best whole life insurance.

• Best universal life insurance.

• Best life insurance for seniors.

• Best mutual life insurance companies.

• Best life insurance for veterans.

• Best life insurance in your 40s and 50s.

• Cheapest life insurance.

Where Guardian Life stands out

Guardian Life has a variety of term and permanent life insurance options and a pretty extensive list of riders to customize your coverage. The company is notable for offering life insurance to qualified HIV-positive applicants and earns top marks for customer satisfaction across the life insurance industry.

Where Guardian Life falls short

Although Guardian provides a lot of general information about how life insurance works, there aren’t a lot of policy details on the company’s website. Guardian does support online quotes for term life insurance, but you’ll have to speak to an agent to get a quote for whole and universal life insurance.

Term life insurance. Guardian Life sells term life insurance lasting 1, 10, 15, 20 or 30 years. You can get an estimated quote on the website, but you’ll have to contact a company advisor to buy a policy.

Permanent life insurance: Guardian Life offers universal life insurance and whole life insurance, including a whole life survivorship policy called Guardian EstateGuard. Survivorship life insurance covers two people — typically a married couple — on one policy. The death benefit is paid out after the second person dies. With the EstateGuard policy, the cash value increases after the first person dies. Another unique feature is that policyholders can add more coverage in the early years of the policy.

Guardian Life insurance for people living with HIV

Guardian Life offers both term and whole life policies to healthy HIV-positive applicants with a coverage limit up to $10 million. Applicants must meet a few requirements to qualify, including being:

• Between 20 and 65 years old.

• On highly active antiretroviral therapy for two or more years with favorable lab results.

• Free of any AIDS-defining illnesses.

• Under the care of a doctor specializing in HIV.

Guardian Life insurance riders

Guardian offers a long list of life insurance riders that you may be able to add to your policy, including:

• Accelerated death benefit. Lets you access part of your death benefit while you’re still alive if you’re diagnosed with a terminal or chronic illness.

• Accidental death benefit. Pays a higher death benefit if you die due to an accident.

• Waiver of premium. Pauses your premiums to keep your policy in force if you become too disabled to work.

• DuoGuard (beneficiary purchase option). With this rider, your beneficiary will be eligible to buy their own life insurance policy after your death without having to take a medical exam or answer health questions.

• Guaranteed insurability. Enables you to buy additional coverage without having to go through underwriting again.

• Paid-up additions. Lets you boost your cash value and death benefit by paying extra early on in the policy.

• Index participation feature. With this rider, you can allocate up to 100% of your paid-up additions to receive a dividend adjustment based on the S&P 500 Index.

• Lifetime protection builder. This add-on to a whole life policy offers 15-year term coverage that decreases every five years. At those milestones, you can choose to buy permanent coverage in place of the term coverage.

• Long-term care. Allows you to use part of your death benefit for long-term care expenses.

• Policy split option. Available on Guardian’s joint policies, this rider gives you the option to split your coverage into two individual policies in the case of divorce or federal estate tax changes.

• 10-year annually renewable term. Adds 10 years of term life insurance to a whole life policy, with premiums that increase each year. You can convert the coverage to whole life insurance for 10 years.

» MORE: Compare life insurance quotes

Below are monthly rates for a 20-year, $500,000 term life insurance policy from Guardian. These are sample rates for a nonsmoking man and woman in excellent health — the final quote you’re offered will depend on factors like your age, health, lifestyle, occupation and driving record.

A strong sign of consumer satisfaction is how many people complain about their insurance company to state agencies. Over three years, Guardian has drawn fewer than the expected number of complaints to state regulators for a company of its size, according to a NerdWallet analysis of data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Guardian Life ranked No. 4 out of 22 companies in J.D. Power's 2025 U.S. Life Insurance Study for overall customer satisfaction[2].

• What Reddit users say about Guardian

  Reddit is an online forum where users share their thoughts in “threads” on various topics. The popular site includes plenty of discussion on financial subjects like life insurance, so we sifted through Reddit forums to get a pulse check on how users feel about insurers. People post anonymously, so we cannot confirm their individual experiences or circumstances.

  Comments on Reddit about Guardian are mixed. Some people criticize Guardian’s customer service, though others say the company is solid overall. We also saw numerous people who’d been sold a whole life policy from Guardian coming to Reddit to ask whether the coverage was actually a bad fit for their financial circumstances. These posters were generally advised by other Redditors to buy term life insurance instead. See the differences between term and whole life insurance.

How Guardian’s customer experience stacks up

Guardian’s website has comprehensive pages about term, whole and universal life insurance. Despite all the general information, there are no specific policy or pricing details on Guardian’s website.

While the site doesn’t have an online chat feature, you can get information from a live representative by phone during business hours.

When we called the personal life insurance number, we were in touch with a human within two minutes. The representative was ready to help current policyholders, but told us they’d need to connect us with an agency in our area to apply for coverage. The rep was able to answer our questions about life insurance term lengths and rider availability.

Guardian’s mobile app is available on both Apple App Store and Google Play Store. On the app, you can see your account details and benefits and make payments. While the star ratings for the app are above 4 out of 5, some Apple users said they were unable to make or set up payments in the app, and some Android users reported trouble logging in or accessing their accounts on the app.

What it’s like to apply for a policy with Guardian

To apply for coverage with Guardian, you’ll need to connect with a local agent.

You can start the process on the company’s website by getting a term life insurance quote without sharing your name or contact information. You’ll need to enter your gender, whether or not you smoke, your age and your annual income. From there, an interactive quote calculator allows you to see monthly estimates for different term lengths and coverage amounts.

Screenshot captured by NerdWallet’s editorial team on October 24, 2025.

Once you’ve seen your quote and adjusted the term length and death benefit amount to your liking, you’ll need to share your contact details so a representative can reach out to you.

Guardian doesn’t provide quotes for whole life insurance policies online. There’s an online search tool to help you find an agency in your area, or you can fill out a contact form on the website to have someone contact you.

Screenshot captured by NerdWallet’s editorial team on October 24, 2025.

» MORE: Life insurance application

In addition to life insurance, Guardian offers other financial products and services, including:

• Disability income insurance.

• Annuities.

• Wealth management and investments.

• Individual dental and vision insurance.

• Critical illness and accident insurance.

• Workplace benefits.

Guardian can be reached by:

• Phone: Call 1-888-482-7342 Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET and Fridays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.

• Email: No general customer service email available. If you already have coverage with Guardian, email il_solutions@glic.com for assistance with your account or policy. 

• Live chat: Not available.