Our review of the Colonial Penn life insurance company will cover everything you need to know about them, their products, rates, and their confusing Unit pricing. We’ll even cover how their life insurance policies work as well as the pros and cons with our complete Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company Reviews!
PROS
No medical exam is required. Has a guaranteed approval product. Whole life fixed premium
CONS
Small coverage amounts. Premiums are higher compared to some other companies
Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company
Review Summary
Colonial Penn provides shoppers simple and easy life insurance options. Unfortunately, their prices, products and options can often be beat by the competition. Also, based on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)- they have a higher than average customer complaint record.
If you’re just looking for an instant quote to compare rates – simply click on our free life insurance calculator. Keep reading or use our easy table of contents below and jump right to the topics you’re searching for.
Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company Pricing
As we wrote above in our review summary, Colonial Penn life insurance products are typically more compared to other similar products sold by the competition. Let’s look at how seniors can save by shopping around.
Colonial Penn Rates
Colonial Penn Life Vs Competition
Colonial Penn
Too Much!-
Male
-
Age 65
-
$7,456 Face Amount*
AIG
BETTER DEAL!-
Male
-
Age 65
-
$8,000 Face Amount*
-
15% SAVINGS + More Coverage!
Why only $7,456*?
Did you see the little “*” that was included in our comparison above? That was included due to Colonial Penn’s confusing system of using “Units.”
In our example above, the maximum amount of coverage that a man age 65 can purchase without any health questions was $7,456.
Why does Colonial Penn use a Unit?
What exactly is a “unit” anyway? Colonial Penn uses something called a unit to calculate the total death benefit available to you. The unit refers to the total death benefit available based on how old you are and your gender. Colonial Penn doesn’t provide a maximum death benefit like other companies. For instance, most companies will simply provide consumers a simple choice of $10,000 or $25,000 for their maximum coverage amount. Not Colonial Penn.
We broke down a quick example below for a 65 year old man shopping for life insurance. In the chart below so you can see how Gerber Life and AIG is straightforward with their maximum coverage. Colonial Penn used their confusing “units” to show the maximum amount available.
Colonial Penn vs Gerber vs AIG
Age 65 / Male | Colonial Penn | Gerber Life | AIG |
---|---|---|---|
Maximum Benefit Without Health Questions | $7,456 | $25,000 | $25,000 |
Fixed Premium | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Qualification Questions? | No | No | No |
Paramedical Exam? | No | No | No |
Guaranteed Issue? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Colonial Penn’s Confusing Rates
Let’s take a look at their rates. We calculated a sample “John Doe” quote for the Colonial Penn Guaranteed Acceptance product. Once again, we used a 65 year old a male from Florida for our example. Colonial Penn’s plan returned a confusing range of rates based on their units of coverage.
Below is snapshot image and explanation of the quote results:
Guaranteed Issue Life Insurance from $9.95 month
Looking at the sample above, 1 unit shows a minimum death benefit coverage amount of $932 for $9.95 per month. That’s a pretty bizarre number.
Remember that Colonial Penn’s rates are determined by “units”. This is the complete opposite way of how almost every life insurance company determines their rate. Each unit will depend on the applicants age, gender and number of units.
Therefore, every applicant will get a different coverage amount for the same exact premium.
The maximum coverage premium for our example quote above came came to $79.60 a month with a maximum coverage amount of $7,456.
WHAT!?!
Why would Colonial Penn offer life insurance shoppers this odd coverage amount? More than likely it’s so they can use their creative marketing strategy of offering you life insurance for $9.95 per month.
They absolutely do offer it, but as you can see – it’s not a good deal.
It isn’t a scam. It’s all in Colonial Penn’s fine print, however it seems a bit misleading to the typical life insurance shopper.
You can do better than Colonial Penn
Colonial Penn’s life insurance policies have a tendency to be much higher than any other kind of policy. Not only that, but you’ll often have significantly lower coverage amounts as the image below shows.
As you can see, our John Doe example can purchase $8,000 in coverage for less than $68.
You’re reading that correctly.
You’ll get more coverage at a lower rate if you buy from AIG or Gerber Life.
Why are their rates so much higher?
Colonial Penn’s high prices may have something to do with their marketing as their advertisements are frequently on TV.
Paying celebrities like Ed McMahon and Alex Trebek to be your spokesman isn’t cheap.
Those marketing costs get passed down to the consumer.
Colonial Penn Rate Lock Commercial
If you’ve seen Colonial Penn’s commercials then you may have gotten excited when Alex Trebek mentioned their Rate Lock. He goes on to explain that your Colonial Penn monthly premium will never change with their whole life policy.
Newsflash!
This isn’t unique to Colonial Penn. In fact it is how all whole life insurance policies work. This isn’t some special feature that you’ll only get with Colonial Penn.
Gerber Life, AIG, Mutual of Omaha….they all have rate locks.
Find out if we can beat Colonial Penn's price!
Will Colonial Penn or some other company like Aetna, Americo or Cigna Life get you the best deal? If you want to make sure you’re getting the best life insurance policy available, here’s what you need to do…
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Colonial Penn Life Insurance Products
With Colonial Penn, you’ll get access to 3 basic types of life insurance policies. With each policy you’ll have a 30 money back guarantee. This guarantee is something all companies provide. With Colonial Penn you can purchase:
Term Life
Colonial Penn offers shoppers a renewable term policy. You must be between the ages of 18 and 75 with the option to renew up to age 90. You need to be aware: Colonial Penn’s term rates will increase in time when your life insurance policy renews when you’re older.
Colonial Penn term life face amounts go up to $50,000.
Whole Life
Beginning at age 40, you can buy Colonial Penn’s whole life policy. You do need to prequalify for this policy to be approved, but there is no medical exam required.
Colonial Penn’s whole life policy will grow cash value like all whole life policies. The maximum face amount for their whole life policy is $50,000.
Guaranteed Issue Life Insurance
More than likely this is the policy you’ve seen advertised on TV. Colonial Penn’s guaranteed issue whole life insurance policy is available for ages 50 to 85. Like other final expense life insurance policies, it does not require a medical exam, but is has a graded benefit.
What is a Graded Benefit?
All guaranteed issue policies have a graded benefit. When you hear the word “benefit” it’s usually a good thing. Unfortunately, it’s another way of saying that the policy has a waiting period before the entire death benefit is available. Colonial Penn has a 2 year waiting period on their policy. This is pretty standard for guaranteed issue final expense life insurance policies. In fact some companies have 3 years or more.
Don’t Buy Guaranteed Issue Unless You Have To
You should never purchase a guaranteed issue policy unless you’re uninsurable. A guaranteed acceptance policy is a policy of last resort. They are the most expensive policy available when you compare the monthly premium to the amount of coverage you receive.
Even if you have some significant health risks, you may qualify for a no medical exam simplified issue policy. These policies only have a few questions and each company is different. Make sure you get help from an independent life insurance agent like us at Life Insurance Blog. Everyone wants to buy from a top 10 life insurance company. We use over 60 top rated companies to shop for our clients so they can be sure they’re getting the best deal available.
Colonial Penn Company Details
Name(s): Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company; CNO Financial Group, Inc
Address:
399 Market Street
Philadelphia PA, 19106
Phone: 800-523-9100
Website: https://colonialpenn.com/
Ratings: A.M. Best (A-), Standard & Poor’s (BBB+), Fitch (BBB+) Comdex (N/A)
Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company Reviews
As can probably tell from this review, we aren’t the biggest fans of the Colonial Penn life insurance company. If you shopping for a Colonial Penn plan or already have one of their policies, we’d recommend shopping around – especially if you’re healthy.
Sure, it’s better to have a life insurance plan from Colonial Penn than not having coverage at all. However, you’re probably paying more for less coverage. So who is a better choice?
Here is our review of the Top Final Expense Companies in the market. We also recommend these top 3 companies:
If you have any questions about Colonial Penn or any other company, please contact us. We’ll help you find the best company you can qualify for. You won’t get any pushy sales techniques – just a dedicated licensed independent agent who will help you fro start to finish.
Contact us today and let’s see how we can help you!