Banner Life Insurance Company Review, Rates and Underwriting

Banner Life Insurance Company is part of The Legal and General America, Inc, also known as LGAmerica.

Great life insurance rates coupled with high-risk life insurance expertise, make Banner one of the best life insurance companies to work with.

Banner Life Insurance Company Review

Our review of Banner Life will provide you with:

Company Overview
Rating Information
Underwriting Review
Product Information
Consumer Approved Materials
Client Login and Contact Information

Banner Life Overview

As part of the Legal & General Group, PLC – the 7th largest insurance company in the world with assets under management in excess of £499 Billion worldwide…Banner Life is in good hands. With over 1.1 million customers, Banner Life is growing, having issued over $50 billion in new coverage in 2015 alone.

Banner Life is a market leader when it comes to offering competitively priced term life insurance, universal life insurance with no lapse guarantees, and executive group carve out life insurance.

Banner Life Ratings Information

Independent Rating Services include:

Ratings as of 01/30/2019 and subject to change.

Banner Life Insurance Underwriting

When it comes to getting the best life insurance rates, you will usually find Banner Life near the top with their term life insurance products. While Banner has universal life insurance available, their focus is term life insurance.

Underwriting Rate Classes Available:

Preferred Plus Non-Tobacco
Preferred Non-Tobacco
Standard Plus Non-Tobacco
Standard Non-Tobacco
Preferred Tobacco
Standard Tobacco

Here’s what you need to know if you are trying to qualify for Banner’s preferred plus life insurance rates:

Blood Pressure – Banner Life allows you to take BP medication and still qualify for their preferred plus rates. The key is that your average blood pressure readings over the past 2 years must be 136/86 or lower. If you do not meet this average, you will not get this rate.
Cholesterol – Cholesterol must be within 100-300 range. Cholesterol medication is okay.
Cholesterol Ratio – May not exceed 4.5
Driving Record – No DUI’s within the past 5 years.
Family History – No cardiovascular or cancer history with either parents or siblings. If the insured is age 70 or above, family history rules do not apply.
Build – You must meet the build requirements for Banner Life in order to get their preferred plus life rates. As an example, a 6′-0″ male needs to weigh 207 pounds or less to qualify.
Tobacco/Nicotine Use – None within the past 36 months. An occasional cigar – 1x per month with a negative urine sample is okay.

The key factors that trip up insureds looking for the preferred plus rates of Banner usually occur with individuals who have borderline blood pressure issues..Since Banner averages past 2 years, if you just recently started taking BP medication, you may have a higher average and miss the best rates.

Banner Life Insurance High-Risk Expertise

As a competitive market leader in life insurance, Banner Life uses its “standard plus” underwriting rate when underwriting high-risk life insurance health issues. There is only one other company that does this, giving Banner an advantage over companies that use a more expensive standard rating for health issues.

Banner High-Risk Life Insurance Expertise includes these health issues

Type 2 Diabetes
Ulcerative Colitis
Coronary Artery Disease
Asthma
Anxiety, Depression and Mood Disorders
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Hepatitis “C”
Epilepsy
Atrial Fibrillation
Sleep Apnea
Skin Cancer

You’ll find extensive details about the above conditions in our guide:

high-risk life insurance

With Banner, the control you have over a medical issue is of great importance.

There are many other health issues that underwriting will consider, and it’s important to shop Banner for all cases due to their use of the standard plus rating mentioned.

Banner Life Insurance Underwriting Programs

At times it may be difficult to qualify for the better rate classes available with companies. The underwriting guidelines are strict for the best rate classes…if you miss one of the underwriting guideline cutoffs, you won’t get the rate…until now.

You’ll find a great article here about:

How Life Insurance Underwriting Can Help You Get Your Best Rate

If you missed getting a better rate due to one of the underwriting criteria such as blood pressure, build, cholesterol ratio, family history, you may qualify for a one rate class improvement with Banner.

There are 7 underwriting criteria available to help you get a better rate…if you meet 3 of the 7, you’ll automatically be considered for the one rate class improvement!

Some of those underwriting criteria include no tobacco use in at least 10 years, favorable cholesterol ratio cutoff, normal cardiac stress test, etc.. We’ll go over the details with you if Banner looks to be the best option for you.

Banner Accelerated Underwriting Program

Legal & General America now offers an accelerated underwriting program that may waive paramedical exams, lab work, and medical records.

Coverage amounts available with Banner’s accelerated underwriting program are based on your age and term length chosen.

Age 20-40 – $100,000 – $1,000,000 of coverage
Age 41-45 – $100,000 – $750,000 of coverage
Age 46-50 – $100,000 – $500,000

The above is available for term lengths of 15-40 years. If you choose a 10 year term, accelerated underwriting is limited to $500,000.

Underwriting factors that are checked as part of the accelerated underwriting program, include:

Identity verification
MIB – Medical Information Bureau check
Motor vehicle records check
Prescription database check
FCRA – Fair Credit Reporting Act checks

Accelerated underwriting by Banner may be a great option if you are in good health and meet the criteria.

Life Insurance Products

While Banner Life offers different types of life insurance, their main focus of Banner is term life insurance. While they have a universal life insurance policy available as well as an executive carve-out term product, their level term policies are tough to beat.

OPTerm Life Insurance

OPTerm is Banner’s term life insurance product, available in 10,15,20,25, 30, 35 & 40 year term lengths. OPTerm has a lot to offer, including these features:

Minimum Face Amount – $100,000
Issue Ages – 20-75
Term Lengths Available:
- 10 Year Term Life Insurance
- 15 Year Term Life Insurance
- 20 Year Term Life Insurance
- 25 Year Term Life Insurance
- 30 Year Term Life Insurance
- 35 Year Term Life Insurance
- 40 Year Term Life Insurance
Conversion available
Accelerated Death Benefit Rider
Term Riders
Children’s Riders
Waiver of Premium Rider
High-Risk Underwriting through Table 12

You’ll find details here about Banner’s recently introduced 40 year term life insurance policy.

LifeStep UL

LifeStep is the universal life insurance policy available with Banner Life that focuses on providing a guaranteed death benefit policy. While this product is available for new sales, it is mainly used for conversions of term policies as there are better options available in the universal life market.

Minimum Face Amount – $50,000
Issue Ages – 20-85
Accelerated Death Benefit Rider
Partial Surrender Benefit

A-List Term

A-List Term is a group term life insurance policy used as a carve-out plan for highly compensated employees. With most group insurance, the amount of life insurance is typically limited to 1x or 2x salary. A carve-out plan like A-List, allows a company to potentially offer up to $3 million in coverage to certain employees.