Pacific Life Insurance Review: Where You Can Find An Abundance Of Policy Options
Whether you’re looking for short-term coverage, flexible premiums, or lifelong protection, Protective Life will likely have something for you. With 11 life insurance policies to choose from, Pacific Life has one of the biggest and most diverse sets of life insurance products today.
In this review, we take a deep dive into the life insurance company’s impressive selection of policies.
Before we explore the offerings at Pacific Life, let us give a brief summary of the five factors we always look into when reviewing a life insurance company:
There are three main types of life insurance:
Aside from the policy types, we also look at the death benefit minimum and maximum limits, issue ages, and term durations offered by each company.
It's difficult to give an ideal price range for life insurance products since premium rates are influenced by factors such as the policyholder's age, health, gender, and lifestyle. These factors come into play because insurance companies are always looking to minimize risks, and the more high-risk you seem, the more you'll be charged for coverage. In fact, life insurance premiums can increase up to five percent for each year you age.
As such, we highly encourage individuals to purchase insurance while they're young and healthy.
With every life insurance company we review, we always take into account how easy it is to get quotes and apply for policies. This is because life insurance isn't always easy to obtain. In fact, the oftentimes long and tedious insurance application process is what drives millions away from purchasing a policy.
When assessing an insurance company's application process, always ask the following questions:
Customer service is another factor you mustn't overlook. After all, you'll be committed to a life insurance company for years. Always look for a company that has the following:
Finally, we always take a look at a company's financial strength ratings, or their ability to honor claims. We refer to agencies like A.M. Best, Moody’s, and Standard & Poor’s for this.
The Pacific Life insurance company was founded in California in 1868 as the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company. Over 150 years later, Pacific Life has come to be known as one of the largest life insurance companies in the insurance industry, with over $1.4 billion paid in insurance and annuity benefits. The company currently ranks 269th on the Fortune 500 list.
Aside from life insurance products, the company also offers a wide range of annuities and mutual funds.
Pacific Life offers 11 different life insurance plans. Here's a rundown of the company's products and services:
You'll find two variants of term life insurance at Pacific Life, the basic PL Promise Term policy and the more comprehensive Pacific Elite Term policy.
This policy provides $50,000 to $1 million worth of coverage for a choice of 10-, 15-, 20-, 25-, or 30-years term durations. It is available to applicants aged 18 to 80 years old and is the only policy that is available for online applications.
With this policy, applicants can get between $750,000 to $3 million in coverage. The issue ages are from 18 to 75, however, the allowable term durations will depend on your age bracket. See the table below:
Age bands | Term duration |
18 to 75 years old | 10-year term |
18 to 65 years old | 20-year term |
18 to 50 years old | 30-year term |
This life insurance policy also offers more flexibility than the previous one. Pacific Elite Term life policies can be converted into or combined with a cash value policy in the future – with no additional cost or underwriting requirements.
If you're looking for whole life insurance, Pacific Life offers one option, the Flex 16 Whole Life policy. This comes with a guaranteed, interest-earning cash value and fixed premiums. Policyholders also have the option to add the Extended Insurance rider, which allows them to stop making premium payments as long as there is sufficient cash value to shoulder the ongoing charges. This option is available at the end of the 61-day grace period.
Another available rider option is the Conversion Rider, which allows policyholders to exchange their existing Flex 16 policies for a brand new Pacific Life policy in the eighth and ninth policy years at no additional cost.
If you're in search of something more flexible, the Pacific Life insurance company has several universal life insurance plans that you can choose from. There are three types of universal life insurance offered at Pacific Life, including indexed universal life, which relies on the performance of stock market indices to grow interest, and variable universal life, which allows for more varied investment options.
While flexible premiums and coverage are standard fare for most universal life policies, the Versa-Flex Venture plan also comes with a cash value whose interest earns at least 2 percent annually and a guaranteed protection for four to 20 years (so long as you pay the short-term no-lapse guarantee premium).
Policyholders can also withdraw from or loan against their cash values should the need arise.
This policy provides policyholders with guaranteed coverage once they hit 90 years old, which they can extend until the age of 121 if they agree to pay slightly higher premiums. It also comes with two base riders at no additional cost: a No-Lapse Guarantee Rider and a Terminal Illness Benefit Rider.
Should you wish to treat your insurance policy as an investment account, you can opt for any one of the three indexed universal life offerings at Pacific Life:
There are three VUL policies offered at Pacific Life:
According to our research, a 25-year-old non-smoker male can expect to pay $24.85 a month for a 20-year PL Promise term life policy with $500,000 worth of coverage. Comparing this to the industry average of $28.02 for the same profile, we can say that Pacific Life offers more affordable insurance rates than the average life insurance company.
However, we should note once more that one's health, lifestyle, gender, and more importantly, age, can impact the price of our premiums.
Unfortunately, applying for Pacific Life insurance is no walk in the park. While you can get online insurance quotes and apply for the PL Promise Term life policy online, the same can't be said for the rest of the Pacific Life insurance policies.
If you wish to request insurance quotes or send an application for any other Pacific Life insurance policy, you'll have to find a nearby insurance agent.
On the upside, while medical exams are required for most Pacific Life policies, it has been noted that the underwriting time is significantly shorter than average. It takes about six to eight weeks for most insurance policies to be fully processed, but at Pacific Life, it only takes about three to four weeks.
The Pacific Life insurance company holds some pretty impressive customer satisfaction ratings online – notably its A- rating from the Better Business Bureau and its 0.09 score at the NAIC complaint index.
For reference, the BBB rates businesses on their performance and helps facilitate customer complaints. Similarly, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners keeps a record of consumer complaints called the Complaint Index. The national average is 1.00, and if an insurance company has a score higher than 1.00, it means they've received more complaints than average. As such, Pacific Life's 0.09 rating indicates that it has received far fewer customer complaints than most insurance providers.
As for the company's customer service, Pacific Life has a hotline that takes calls from Mondays through Fridays, 8 am to 5 pm.
With an excellent track record, solid financial strength ratings, and an abundance of policies to choose from, Pacific Life makes for a great place to shop for life insurance – that is, if you don't mind not having access to insurance quotes early on.
Looking for something else? At Wesley LLC, we have a variety of reviews and articles that can help make the life insurance buying process a little less painful. You can also contact us to learn more about how we can assist you in your personal finance journey.