Transamerica Life Insurance Company Review

In 1904, Amadeo P. Giannini started Transamerica to help make financial services available to everyone.

You probably know Transamerica from its distinctive pyramid building in San Francisco, which used to be the location of its headquarters.

Today, Transamerica offers life insurance, annuities, retirement plans, and more.

And while Transamerica has solid ratings and financials, there’s more to the company than just that.

In our experience, we work with many life insurance companies, and Transamerica used to be a favorite until they fell out of favor in 2021 due to operational problems.

Recently, Transamerica made some improvements, so we are cautiously working with them again because they offer competitively priced policies.

The Trendsetter Super Series and Trendsetter LB are term life insurance products Transamerica offers.

The Super Series is your low-cost term life policy, while LB stands for Living Benefits that may interest you.

As we mentioned, three of the Pros that Transamerica offers are:

Coverage amounts start at $25,000 – This is rare for term life insurance, as most companies start at $100,000. Assurity and Illinois Mutual are the others.

Prices are based on actual age – Most companies consider you the next age when you are within six months of your next birthday, while Transamerica, Prudential, and Mutual of Omaha use your actual age.

Term life conversions for older ages – Transamerica allows conversion to age 75 (subject to product rules) if you decide to convert your term life to permanent insurance. Most other companies stop at age 70.

Description	Super Series	LB Series
Minimum Face	$25,000	$25,000
Term Length Years	YRT 10 15 20 25 30	– 10 15 20 25 30
Conversion?	Yes	Yes
Riders Available:
Term. Illness Accel. DB	Yes	Yes
Accidental Death Benefit	Yes	Yes
Children’s Insurance Rider	Yes	Yes
Disability Waiver	Yes	Yes
Monthly Disability Income	No	Yes
Chronic Illness Accel. DB	No	Yes
Critical Illness Accel. DB	No	Yes

Later in this article, we highlight the underwriting differences between these products. The LB series is more strict with underwriting.

Sample Pricing – Male, Preferred Plus rate, CA – Annual Premium for $1,000,000 – 20-year term life insurance.

Age	Trendsetter Super	Trendsetter LB
35	$390	$740
40	$580	$1070
45	$1010	$1580
50	$1570	$2410
55	$2600	$3780

Sample Pricing – Female, Preferred Plus rate, CA – Annual Premium for $1,000,000 – 20-year term life insurance.

Age	Trendsetter Super	Trendsetter LB
35	$340	$610
40	$480	$870
45	$780	$1220
50	$1130	$1840
55	$1860	$2940

Riders Offered by Transamerica

The following are general descriptions of riders.

Your state of residence determines availability and rider details.

We’ll provide full illustrations if you consider any of these options.

Terminal Illness Accelerated Death Benefit – This rider accelerates a portion of the death benefit if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Doctors expect death within 12 months.

There is no cost for the rider, but you pay an administrative fee if you use it.

Available with Super Series and LB Series policies.

You can accelerate up to 100% of the death benefit or $1.5 million, whichever is less.

The minimum amount you can accelerate is $5,000.

Accidental Death Benefit Rider – If the face amount of your policy is less than $200,000, the maximum rider is equal to the policy face amount x 2.5 or $200,000, whichever is less.

If your policy is $200,000 or greater, the maximum rider is the face amount of your policy or $300,000, whichever is less.

Children’s Insurance Rider – Available for children aged 15 days to 18 years.

Coverage expires on the child’s 25th birthday.

Policy amounts from $1,000 – $25,000 are available.

You can convert the child rider to a permanent insurance policy for up to 5 times the rider amount or $50,000, whichever is less.

Disability Waiver of Premium Rider – If you become disabled for at least six months, this rider will waive premiums.

Interestingly, Transamerica waives the premiums during disability and retroactively from the beginning of the disability.

This rider comes with an additional cost.

Other companies that offer similar riders include Prudential, Corebridge Financial, and Lincoln Financial.

Trendsetter LB Riders

Monthly disability income rider (MDI) – This rider is available with the Trendsetter LB policy.

This rider provides a monthly income for up to 24 months if the insured is totally disabled and qualifies.

Available with the 15, 20, 25, and 30-year term policies.

It is not available for the 10-year term.

The minimum benefit is $300 per month.

The maximum benefit is the lesser of $2,000 per month or 2% of the base policy’s initial face amount, not exceeding 66% of gross monthly income.

Additional limitations may apply.

Chronic Illness Accelerated Death Benefit Rider – This living benefit rider becomes available if you cannot perform at least 2 of 6 of the daily living activities.

The chronic illness (living benefits) riders have replaced Transamerica long-term care insurance products.

Daily living activities include bathing, continence, dressing, eating, toileting, and transferring.

You can accelerate up to 24% of the death benefit in one year.

Up to 90% of the death benefit or $1,500,000 can be accelerated, whichever is less.

The accelerated payout depends on your life expectancy.

Any acceleration reduces the face amount of the policy.

Trans reduces premiums proportionately and charges an administrative fee for each claim processed.

Critical Illness Accelerated Death Benefit Rider – Accelerates a portion of the death benefit if you become critically ill.

Examples of critical illnesses may include:

• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Cancer
• End-stage renal failure
• Major organ transplant
• ALS/Lou Gehrig’s disease
• Blindness
• Paralysis

There are specific requirements regarding the severity of the condition to qualify for this benefit.

You can accelerate up to the lesser of 90% of the policy’s face amount or:

“A maximum Accelerated Death Benefit amount declared by us. This amount will never be less than $500,000 and is currently a cumulative amount of $1,500,000 per insured, including all other accelerated death benefits previously elected or currently under review under all policies, endorsements, or riders issued by us or our affiliates.”

This rider is built into the living benefits policy.

Life insurance underwriting at Transamerica varies by product type.

Some of the positives and negatives of Transamerica underwriting include:

Transamerica is known for its foreign national underwriting and estate planning cases of $10 million or greater.

Transamerica and Banner Life will consider “preferred” rates if you have asthma. Many other companies would only give you a “standard” rate.

If you are under 50 and take blood pressure medication, Transamerica will not give you their best rate class, while Protective, Corebridge, Symetra, and others will.

If one of your parents died before age 65 from heart disease or cancer, you may only get a standard plus rate at Transamerica vs. a preferred rate at John Hancock.

Another area where Transamerica needs to make improvements is in the arena of accelerated underwriting.

While many companies now offer accelerated underwriting and some instant approvals, this is not an option for Trans yet.

Transamerica does offer non-medical underwriting as follows:

• Trendsetter Super
  • 18 – 70 = Up to $50,000 as a non-medical option.
  • 18 – 60 = Up to $99,000 as a non-medical option.
• Trendsetter LB Non-med
  • 18 – 60 = Up to $249,999 as a non-medical option.

We start you with a drop ticket or e-application. First, you submit some basics with the drop ticket and then complete a phone interview. Afterward, you complete everything online using the e-application.

Regarding their processes, underwriting with Transamerica is fair but nothing too special.

Underwriting rate classes available:

• Preferred Plus
• Preferred
• Standard Plus
• Standard
• Preferred Smoker
• Standard Smoker

Remember, if you purchase less than $100,000 of term insurance, the best rate class available will be a “standard” rate.

Interestingly enough, occasional cigar smoking of 1 per month with a negative urine sample will still qualify for non-tobacco rates.

Customer Service at Transamerica

Policyowner service at Transamerica offers online, mail, and over-the-phone options for help with your policy.

Transamerica does not offer live chat or an email address to contact them but rather uses an online contact form for you to use. In our experience, it takes 48 hours to hear back from them using the contact form.

Changes that you can make include:

You can call to report a death claim or complete the online death notification form – here.

If you are not the owner, beneficiary, or designated third party, your access to information will be limited at best. You can still inform the company of the insured’s death, but that may be the extent of your access.

Death Claim Information Needed:

If you have a copy of the policy, take a look in the back, as it should have a copy of the original application completed to buy the insurance and the original insurance agent information who wrote the policy.

How Long Does Transamerica Take to Pay Death Claims?

The answer depends on how long the policy has been active. Life insurance policies are contestible for the first few years of the policy. If the insured died during this time, death claims take longer, as the insurance company will investigate the claim.

We have had better results when calling Transamerica for policy information, etc.

As mentioned, we recently started working with Transamerica again, so we weren’t too surprised by some of the reviews we saw.

The Better Business Bureau, for example, shows a 1.08/5 stars as of 8/30/2023. If you read them, you’ll see that many of the issues relate to policyowner service with Transamerica.

The 2022 JD Power Overall Customer Satisfaction Survey ranked Transamerica 22 out of 23 life insurance companies. The only company ranked worse was Equitable, which didn’t surprise us.

On the other hand, Forbes recently ranked Transamerica 4.5 out of 5 stars. We think the Forbes ranking of Transamerica is wrong.

Especially when you look at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) 2022 report, which gave Transamerica a 2.71 on its national complaint index that goes to 2.0!

The baseline index for all companies is 1.0, which means that Transamerica complaints are coming in at almost three times the rate of your average insurance company.

Final Words

Transamerica has been around for a long time. The ratings and financials are favorable.

It remains to be seen if their operational issues will improve.

We use this company when no other option exists, such as for a high-risk life insurance case or when the consumer is willing to go through the process knowing the above.

We’ll show you how Transamerica compares with other companies. You may have to wait a little longer than with other companies, but it may be worthwhile when Trans has the best rate.

Please take a few minutes to submit your request.