Protective Life Insurance Company Comprehensive Review for 2024

Protective Life Insurance Company, founded in 1907, is known for its competitive pricing, excellent coverage options, and strong financial strength.

In this review, we’ll show you everything you need to make a great decision about Protective.

Why Choose Protective Life Insurance?

Protective Life began in Birmingham, Alabama, and has grown through strategic acquisitions of 45 life insurance companies. In 2015, Dai-ichi Life Holdings of Japan acquired Protective.

Key Stats (As of December 2023):

• Assets – $113 Billion
• Customers – 14 Million
• Life Insurance In Force – Over $1 Trillion

Financial Strength Ratings (As of September 2024):

• AM Best: A+ (Superior)
• Fitch: AA- (Very Strong)
• Moody’s: A1 (Upper-Medium Grade)
• S&P: AA- (Very Strong)

These ratings affirm Protective’s financial strength and ability to meet its obligations, making it a reliable choice for life insurance coverage.

Protective has several types of life insurance products available, including:

• Term Life Insurance
• Universal Life Insurance
• Index Universal Life Insurance
• Whole Life Insurance
• Variable Universal Life Insurance

Known for its competitively priced term life insurance and universal life insurance policies, as well as its underwriting for some high-risk life insurance applicants.

If you are looking for a term life insurance policy, the Classic Choice Term policy is for you.

This is the most popular life insurance product with Protective.

Here’s the latest consumer-approved guide for Classic Choice Term.

Classic Choice Term Life Insurance Highlights

Coverage amounts as of 2024 start at $100,000 in all states except New York, with a minimum face amount of $250,001 and maximum face amounts greater than $5 million.

Class Choice Term Life Insurance Durations by Age Chart

Term Lengths	Ages	Tobacco Ages	New York Ages	New York Tobacco Ages
10-Year	18-80	18-75	18-69	18-69
15-Year	18-75	18-68	18-69	18-68
20-Year	18-70	18-62	18-67	18-62
25-Year	18-60	18-52	18-57	18-52
30-Year	18-58	18-43	18-56	18-43
35-Year	18-50	18-40	18-50	18-40
40-Year	18-45	18-40	18-45	18-40

Classic Term Life policies may be renewed to age 95 in all states except NY, where policies may be renewed to age 90.

You may further customize your policy by adding Protective life insurance riders.

• Riders Available (full descriptions provided later in this article)
  • Accidental death benefit
  • Children’s term life insurance
  • Conversion Choice rider with ExtendCare
  • Waiver of Premium
  • Income Provider Option Endorsement
  • Terminal Illness Accelerated Death Benefit Endorsement (not available in NY)

The availability of these riders depends on several factors, including the state where the policy is issued, the age of the insured, and other factors.

Transamerica LB is an option to consider if you’re looking for a policy with great living benefit riders.

Classic Term Conversion Options

The Classis Term policy allows you to convert your term policy to permanent life insurance.

The conversion policies available depend on factors such as your age, how long you’ve had your policy and choices may be limited by the state of ownership.

In addition, Protective Life offers Costco term life insurance to its members. That product is different than the types of life insurance mentioned here.

Protective Life offers many universal life insurance products, whole life, and variable life products to address varying permanent insurance needs.

The permanent life products that Protective offers include:

• Advantage Choice – Universal life with cash value accumulation potential and Return of Premium option.
• ProClassic II – Universal life with cash value accumulation potential.
• Lifetime Assurance – Guaranteed universal life insurance to age 121.
• Survivor UL – Survivorship universal life insurance for two people.
• Indexed Choice – Index universal life with cash value accumulation based on a stock market index.
• Non-Participating Whole Life – Non-participating whole life insurance.

Protective Life announced on 9/26/2024 that its Custom Choice universal life policy will be discontinued as of 12/31/2024.

We’ve decided to pull this product effective immediately as there are better alternative options with Protective and other companies.

The Custom Choice universal life insurance policy offers guaranteed periods similar to a term life policy but allows you to extend the coverage in the future should you need to.

The minimum face amount of coverage is $100,000

Policy duration choices are 10,15,20,25, and 30-year durations.

Even though this is a universal life insurance policy, the focus of this product is to provide a guaranteed death benefit as the policy does not accumulate cash value.

The Classic Term policy has largely replaced the Custom Choice product.

Custom Choice is the market’s only universal life insurance policy that may be converted to another permanent life insurance product!

The Advantage Choice is a universal life product that allows for potential cash value accumulation.

The minimum face amount is $50,000.

Advantage Choice offers a Return of Premium (ROP) Endorsement. With ROP, the policy owner may cancel coverage in year 21 or year 26 of the policy.

If canceled in year 21, you would receive 50% of your total premiums paid. If you canceled the policy in year 26, you would receive 100% of the premiums you paid into the policy.

You are also able to guarantee your death benefit up to age 121.

The ProClassic II universal life insurance policy provides the potential for cash value accumulation and a guaranteed death benefit to age 121.

The minimum face amount is $25,000, making this a great alternative to over-priced final expense life insurance policies.

The Lifetime Assurance universal life insurance policy provides a guaranteed death benefit and premium.

You can choose a guaranteed death benefit anywhere between the ages of 90 – 121.

This policy has a minimum face amount of $50,000.

This policy also offers an optional Return of Premium Endorsement rider.

The Survivor UL policy is a universal life insurance policy that insures two people’s lives.

Also known as a survivorship or second-to-die policy, this type of policy is used for estate planning purposes.

The minimum face amount is $250,000.

The policy offers death benefit guarantees to age 121 of the younger insured.

The Indexed Choice universal life insurance policy provides cash value accumulation potential, guaranteed death benefits, and optional living benefits.

The minimum face amount is $100,000.

The indexed account credits interest to your policy based on the positive performance of the S&P 500® Index, excluding dividends.

Protective Life offers a non-participating whole life insurance product.

Non-participating means that the policy does not pay dividends.

The minimum face amount starts at $1,000 in most states, while West Virginia requires a minimum face amount of $25,001.

The policy offers a reduced paid-up death benefit should you stop paying premiums. The following sample illustration provides an example of this feature.

In addition to its products, Protective offers many riders that may be added to your Protective policy.

The availability of riders depends on several factors, including the state of issue, age, underwriting rating received, occupations, etc.

Some examples of the riders available with Protective Life include:

Accidental Death Benefit Rider – provides an additional benefit if you die in an accident.

Children’s Term Rider – This is a low-cost way to add $1,000 – $20,000 of coverage for your children.

Conversion Choice rider with ExtendCare – Allows clients to convert their policy to more Protective permanent products over the level period of the policy minus two years, up to 18 years or the anniversary nearest the insured’s 70th birthday. It also offers access to
chronic illness protection with ExtendCare at the time of conversion to a permanent product.

Extend Care Rider and Chronic Illness Accelerated Death Benefit Rider – The rider available varies by product type.

Advances a portion of the death benefit when the insured cannot perform at least 2 of the Activities of Daily Living.

Disability Benefit Rider – May provide a monthly benefit in the event of total disability.

IPO – Income Provider Option – This is a rider that allows you to have the death benefit paid to your beneficiaries over a period of time rather than as a lump sum.

The potential benefit of selecting this rider when you buy insurance is that it may lower your premium costs or allow you to select a greater death benefit for the same premium.

Protected Insurability Rider – This rider allows you to increase your coverage without providing further evidence of insurability.

Waiver of Premium Rider – Waives premiums if you become disabled. There is a 6 month waiting period before this benefit becomes available.

Please let us know if any of these riders interest you, and we will provide quotes to you with and without these riders.

Remember that riders may or may not be available in your state based on your age and rate class received and the life insurance product chosen.

Velocity is Protective Life’s set of digital tools to improve your application process.

Protective Consumer Guide to Life Insurance

Those tools include:

• Electronic Applications – No More Paper!
• TeleLife – You may complete your application over the phone if you like.
• PLUS – Protective Life Underwriting Solutions offers accelerated underwriting – Faster underwriting!
• Electronic Policy Delivery – You receive your policy within 24-48 hours of approval.

The goal is to get you approved as fast as possible.

You will typically see that their rates are among the most competitive in the industry.

The cost of any riders selected needs to be compared with other companies as the cost of riders varies by company.

Protective is one of the better companies to work with for insureds age 70 or older.  We have found over the years that they are tough to beat in this market.

High Risk Underwriting niches include:

• Heart Conditions
• Diabetes
• Prostate Cancer

If you are applying for the “Select Preferred” rate class, Protective is better than some and worse than other companies with its guidelines.

Some of the Pros and Cons of Protective Life underwriting include the following:

PRO – Protective Life has separate older age underwriting guidelines, where build charts and blood pressure charts are more liberal than for younger insureds.

Prudential and Lincoln National are two other companies that offer older age guidelines, while Banner Life does not.

PRO – Protective Life offers their Pro credit standard-to-preferred underwriting program. Suppose you are disqualified from the preferred rate class due to one cardiovascular issue such as blood pressure, build, cholesterol, or family history. In that case, this program may allow you to receive the preferred rate.

CON – If you had a parent die from cancer before age 60, Protective won’t give you their Select Preferred rate.

Companies like John Hancock, Banner Life, and Lincoln National will give you their best rate for a parent’s cancer death before 60.

CON – If you’re familiar with the NT-ProBNP cardiovascular test used to detect heart failure, Protective uses this test for:

• Age 51-60 – $500,000 or greater
• Age 61+ – All face amounts

More and more companies are using the NT-ProBNP test.

CON – Total cholesterol cutoff is 275 with Protective.

Many other companies, including Prudential, AIG, and Banner Life have a cholesterol cutoff of 300.

Protective Life is one of the companies that we always reach out to for underwriting feedback as many times they will be a competitive company.

Yes, Protective has a great claim-paying history dating back to its first claim in 1909.

Protective is committed to paying your life insurance claim as quickly as possible.

Generally, claims take 3-4 weeks to pay, although there are instances where it may take longer.

Is their customer service always the best? No, but that holds for every insurance company we work with.

Whenever we’ve had an issue with Protective, we can get to the right people to resolve the issue.

Like most companies these days, Protective offers online access to you so that you may review your policy and make changes.

Protective Life is a good life insurance company worth considering.

We’re here to help you with your life insurance needs and look forward to working with you.

Please take a few minutes to submit your request for quotes.  Thank you.