Guardian Life Insurance Review 2025
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Guardian Life
on Nerdwallet
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
NAIC complaints
Policies offered
on Nerdwallet
Guardian Life
Financial strength rating
Online purchase
NAIC complaints
Policies offered
About Guardian Life insurance
Guardian Life earned 5 stars out of 5 for overall performance, thanks to its excellent financial strength and high levels of customer satisfaction. Based on this star rating, Guardian Life is among NerdWallet’s best life insurance companies for 2025.
Guardian Life Insurance Company of America is a mutual life insurance company, meaning it’s owned by its policyholders. Customers who buy whole life insurance may be eligible for dividends based on Guardian’s financial performance. The company has paid dividends every year since 1868, and paid out $1.4 billion to policyholders in 2024.
Very few complaints from customers.
Offers unique coverage options, such as policies for HIV-positive applicants.
Minimal policy details on the site.
Can’t buy a policy online.
» MORE: Compare life insurance quotes
Guardian Life insurance policies
Guardian made our lists for best term life insurance, best whole life insurance, best life insurance for seniors and best mutual life insurance companies in 2025.
Term life insurance. Guardian Life offers policies with terms of 10, 15, 20 or 30 years. You can get an estimated quote for term life insurance on the company’s website, but you must 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 to the beneficiary 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 several 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 as a result of 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.
Guardian Life insurance customer complaints and satisfaction
Over three years, Guardian Life has drawn far fewer complaints to state regulators than expected for a company of its size, according to a NerdWallet analysis of data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
Guardian Life ranked No. 2 out of 21 companies in J.D. Power's 2024 U.S. Life Insurance Study for overall customer satisfaction .
Guardian life insurance rates
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.
Age | Monthly rate - man | Monthly rate - woman |
|---|---|---|
20 | $22.32 | $18.02 |
30 | $23.17 | $18.45 |
40 | $31.33 | $26.18 |
50 | $75.96 | $58.37 |
60 | $235.18 | $154.93 |
Source: Direct from insurer. Rates reflect the super preferred class and were generated on 11/13/24. | ||
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.
Questions from Reddit: Our experts answer
Should I buy a Guardian whole life insurance policy?
Term life insurance is a better option for most people, in part because whole life insurance comes with a significantly higher price tag. However, this type of coverage may be appropriate in certain circumstances — for example, if you have a child with lifelong special needs, or if you’re a high-net-worth individual looking to help your heirs with estate taxes. Learn whether whole life insurance is a good investment.
Is it better to buy life insurance from a mutual insurance company like Guardian?
A mutual life insurance company is owned by its policyholders, while a stock life insurance company is owned by shareholders. Both types of companies can offer great coverage. However, one advantage of buying coverage from a mutual life company is that it may pay dividends to permanent life insurance policyholders based on financial performance. Get more information on life insurance dividends.
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 November 20, 2024.
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. Instead, there’s an online search tool to help you find an agency in your area. Alternatively, you can fill out a contact form on the website to have an agent contact you.
Screenshot captured by NerdWallet’s editorial team on November 20 2024.
How Guardian’s customer experience stacks up
Guardian’s website has comprehensive pages about term, whole and universal life insurance, including coverage details, product comparisons and frequently asked questions.
While there is no online chat feature on the website, 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. They gave us the contact information for a local company where we could purchase a Guardian plan. Although we weren’t able to apply for coverage by phone, the Guardian representative answered our questions about life insurance term lengths and rider availability.
Guardian’s mobile app is available in both the 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.
More about Guardian Life insurance
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.
How to contact Guardian
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 [email protected] for assistance with your account or policy.
Live chat: Not available.
Life insurance buying guide
Before you start comparing companies, choose the type of life insurance you want, such as term or whole life. Decide which life insurance riders, if any, you want the policy to include. Calculate how much life insurance you need and how long you want the coverage to last. Check that the insurers you’re considering offer the coverage you’re looking for.
When comparing rates, be sure the quotes are for the same amount of coverage over the same period of time. It’s also important to make sure the policy’s medical requirements match your needs. For example, if you want to skip the life insurance medical exam but don’t mind answering health questions, confirm that the application process for each policy you're comparing aligns with that.
Price may not be the biggest driver behind your decision to buy. Look at the number of consumer complaints each company receives, as high numbers can be a red flag about the quality of service.
For more guidance, see our life insurance buying guide.
Methodology
Life insurance ratings methodology
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 several insurance quotes to find the best rate for you. NerdWallet does not receive compensation for any reviews. Read our editorial guidelines.
Insurer complaints methodology
NerdWallet examined complaints received by state insurance regulators and reported to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in 2021-2023. To assess how insurers compare with 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.
