Speak with an experienced advisor! 877-800-0450Many options present themselves when it comes to finding the best life insurance policy for you and your family’s financial needs and protection. You have a lot to consider, and life insurance is one of the most critical financial purchases you will ever make.
Not long ago, life insurance was much easier to understand. You paid a premium, and in exchange, your family was protected with a lump sum cash payment at your death covering final financial needs and expenses.
Life insurance has now begun to adapt and change over the years and is becoming much more robust and offering other coverages that can protect your family in many new ways. I’m sure you are probably wondering, what kind of life insurance am I referring too?
Life insurance with living benefits. The new form of life insurance is here and offers coverage not only when you pass away but also while living.
That’s right. You can access money while living now with a few select companies providing coverage in the life insurance market.
Prudential Life Insurance Company is one of those companies currently offering this form of coverage. I wanted to break down the ins and outs of Prudential Life Insurance Company and give you the details about how life insurance with living benefits works when you opt to use Prudential as your company of choice.
More on Prudential Life Insurance Company
Prudential has been of the biggest and most recognized companies in the life insurance market for many years. It was founded in Newark New Jersey and has been around since 1875. It’s a Goliath in the industry and currently has the financial strength ratings to back it up.
Currently, Prudential Life Insurance Company is recognized and awarded an “A” rating from A.M. Best and the other 3 major credit rating agencies that are assigned with judging the final strength of insurance companies across the globe.
Prudential to this day, still ranks #2 for total assets under management and is known not only to be a top company to place your life insurance coverage with but is also excellent in terms of employment for individuals and representing the life insurance industry with integrity and strong customer satisfaction.
Life Insurance Products Offered by Prudential Life Insurance
Currently, Prudential Life Insurance offers all the core products that you will see with nearly any life insurance company. You have the option to purchase life insurance coverage with Prudential in the following forms.
• Term Life Insurance
• Universal Life Insurance
• Indexed Universal Life Insurance
• Variable Life Insurance
Term Life Insurance with Prudential Life Insurance
For the sake of this post, we are only focused on the term life insurance product. Currently, Prudential offers a grand total of 6 forms of term life insurance with separate product names. Here’s a look at them.
• PruTerm One
• PruLife- Return of Premium
• PruTerm Worklife 65
• Term Elite
• Term Essential
• My Term
Living Needs Benefits Riders with Prudential Life Insurance
Now, it’s time to get into a part of Prudential’s products that make them stand out from the rest of the competition. Currently, Prudential Life is one of the companies offering what are commonly known as “living benefits” built into their life insurance policies.
These are currently offered by Prudential on not only the term life insurance products but also on the permanent life insurance products with Prudential Life.
As of right now, Prudential only offers 2 ways that you can access the cash value of your policy while living when using your living needs benefits riders.
The two options that they currently offer are the following.
• Nursing Home Option
• Terminal Illness Option
Terminal Illness Rider and Prudential Living Benefits
Currently with Prudential to qualify for the terminal illness portion of your life insurance policy or trigger an even to “accelerate you the death benefit while living”, you would need to be diagnosed a licensed physician with the reasonable expectation to live 6 months or less.
If this is the case, you would now qualify under their terminal illness portion of your living needs benefit rider with Prudential. Once qualified, you are eligible to accelerate up to 90-95% of the proceed of your death benefits while living.
Here’s an example of how this would look for you. Current life insurance policy with Prudential has a face amount (death benefit) of 250,000.00 in coverage.
You qualify under the terminal illness qualification of your policy and accelerate 250,000 x .95%= 237,500.00
Once you have elected to forward this portion of your death benefit, the remainder will be deducted and provided to your beneficiaries at your death.
In this scenario we just laid out, you would have roughly 12,500.00 death benefit remaining, and the 237,500.00-death benefit accelerated to you to be able to use for medical expenses, final in-home care or whatever you decide to do with it.
The company does not monitor or need proof of where the death benefit or living needs benefit is spent once you have been qualified to receive it.
Once the money is in your hands your free to use it on what you choose. The exact same way that it would be if you were to receive the money as a death benefit as opposed to a living benefit”.
Nursing Home Care Qualification to Receive Living Benefits with Prudential
This is option number 2 that would give you the ability to accelerate your death benefits while living. In order to qualify you would need to be confined to a nursing home for 6 months or more.
To be eligible under this portion of the life insurance policy you would also need to prove that you will be confined to the nursing home permanently.
In this situation, you would be able to accelerate 70% of the total face amount of the policy to help cover the cost. This could substantially eat into your total bill and money out of pocket needed for long term care.
Here is an example of this portion of your benefit in action.
Original Policy Amount- 250,000.00 (Death Benefit)
Confined to a Nursing Home- 70% Accelerated Benefit
Cash In hand While Living- 250,000 x.70 %= 175,000.00
Think About the Relief That This Could Provide
If you have ever known someone to need long term care or expensive medical related cost later in life, you would understand these can financially bankrupt a family easily.
Having the ability to get to the cash benefit of a policy before death can provide just as much relief to you and your family if not more as the old school of way doing life insurance could provide.
What Happens When I Accelerate my Death Benefit?
Well, after you elect to use your living benefit needs rider with Prudential, the amount not used will remain and provided to your beneficiaries at your death.
Once you have chosen the amount required to accelerate to you, you will deduct that total amount from the original death benefit just like we did in the illustrations above.
What If I Accelerate the Cash and Then Pass Away?
No worries. The life insurance companies including Prudential Life Insurance Company are aware that this is a possibility.
If you have accelerated the benefits and pass away before benefits have been provided, the total benefit amount including the leftover (non-accelerated- benefit amount) will be paid to your beneficiaries that you initially indicated on the application.
Living Benefits with Prudential Can Protect Other Assets
Never forget about what the end of life may look like. You may have retirement accounts, savings accounts, and properties that you have worked so hard to pay off or reach a point of ownership in.
When it comes to covering the costly end of life medical expenses, terminal illness and critical illness related cost, you can quickly erase all this hard work and begin depleting your savings, retirements and other assets to cover these costs.
You May Not Have the Need for The Original Death Benefit Anymore
You also need to keep in mind that you may not even need the original death benefit anymore the way you once did. Often these life insurance policies are taken out during the middle ages of life when the need to protect the spouse and kids are at a peak.
Maybe by now, the kids are off in college or even have their first jobs and own families to worry about. Perhaps the debts are just about gone, and you no longer need to worry about covering the spouse in the event of a tragedy.
If this is the case, why not considering accelerating the death benefits if you need the case now? I understand it can also come down to a pride thing and you would prefer to leave a legacy to your family in the event you pass but at the same time, what’s it going to cost you to leave that legacy?
Who else will suffer because of this and what assets will be lost?
Can I Choose Someone Other Than Prudential To Work with That Offers Living Benefits?
Yes, you bet you can. In fact, we recommend it. Here’s the thing about Prudential Life Insurance. They are a top dog in the industry. Nobody can deny that.
The rock that makes up the company’s logo speaks a million words by itself and goes to show that Prudential is built on a solid foundation and likely always be.
However, just because you are a dominating force in the industry, doesn’t mean you are the best at everything that industry entails. Amazon and Facebook are goliath companies as well, but they sure have weak spots or areas that they could improve on.
Prudential does offer great living benefits and they also provide some of the most competitive pricing on term life insurance products for specific age demographics.
Especially ages such as 45-65 but if you are looking at the total package and most interested in living benefits only, read on a few more paragraphs because I have a few recommendations for you.
Other Life Insurance Companies Offering Living Benefits
Like we stated before, let’s assume you want to consider a company with a more complete package when it comes to living benefits. If that’s the case, we would likely place the following companies at the top in this exact order.
These companies offer more triggers (more ways to qualify), more coverage types with living benefits (critical, chronic and terminal illness) and higher payout amounts.
Again, this is nothing against Prudential. In fact, they may be my top go-to life insurance company for other needs, but the companies we are going to rank in order surely offer better living benefit packages.
1st Place- American National Life Insurance Company- See Full Living Benefits Review Here
2nd Place- Phoenix Life Insurance Company- See Full Living Benefits Review Here
3rd Place- Foresters Life Insurance Company- See Full Living Benefits Review Here
4th Place- Ameritas Life Insurance Company- See Full Living Benefits Review Here
5th Place- Protective Life Insurance Company- See Full Living Benefits Review Here
6th Place- Mutual of Omaha Life Insurance Company- See Full Living Benefits Review Here
The Best Part? We Represent and Understand All of them.
This isn’t even the complete list of companies currently offering living benefits to be built into life insurance now. However, what we can tell you is that we specialize in living benefits and we see the importance in it.
The power these policies can have is beyond words. It’s just hard to understand that now because nobody wants to think of any negative experiences that the future may hold for us.
All these companies including Prudential have clearly made a statement that they want their clients protected in the best possible fashion.
What’s the Catch, How Much Will I Pay?
That’s where it gets beautiful. Nothing. In almost all circumstances you are not paying anything additional to be afforded living benefits built into your policy. The companies offering them do so to be competitive in the market and stand out as a company that provides the most comprehensive coverage.
A few exceptions apply. Mutual of Omaha for example will force you to purchase the (ROP) product instead of the regular term insurance to be afforded with the ability to add living benefits which can cost a few more dollars per month.
Some Companies Only Offer Living Benefits with No-Exam Policies
Additionally, the companies on our top-ranked list such as Phoenix Life Insurance Company will offer this coverage but only in the form of (no-exam) life insurance which can also carry a higher price tag.
The fact of the matter is, no-exam is always more expensive, and the return of premium life insurance will also always be more expensive. Living benefits or not.
You aren’t paying more for the living benefits themselves with the companies who currently offer this coverage.
How Would I Move Forward Purchasing Life Insurance with Living Benefits?
If you think you are ready to proceed, and you see the real value as we do at Go Living Benefits, you can start by filling out the Instant Quotes Form on the left-hand side of the screen.
Here’s what will happen.
Once you enter the necessary information you see on the screen, all the companies currently offering living benefits will display with available rates. This gives you a chance to compare and look at the companies that you may want to choose and do your own due diligence deciding.
If you need more information about how to proceed or even how to know which companies living benefits are the best, start by reading our other reviews, fill out the quote form and start the application process.
One of our living benefits specialists will reach out to you and have the discussion. No, we don’t push, no we don’t force your hand, and no we won’t be the typical sales agent with you.
We will just answer your questions and guide you towards the best companies to fit your needs based on budget, health criteria and coverage desires.
The Final Word, Stop Waiting Until the Last Minute. That’s When It’s Often Too Late.
Stop putting off the important things in life. I know, I do it too and understand that these processes are never fun and are easy to put on the backburners.
However, if you have a family to protect and have worked your entire life to reach the success and assets you have today, you need to think hard about how you genuinely plan to handle the cost that can arise later in life.
I hate to break it to you, but a robust Long-Term Care policy or disability policy isn’t always going to cut it.
Get started today and achieve peace of mind.
What are you waiting for?
