Prudential Life Insurance Review

Holding roughly 8% of the market, Prudential is the third-largest life insurance company in the United States. The company offers a wide variety of products, which can make choosing one difficult if you're new to insurance. Fortunately, by exploring the details of policies and weighing the pros and cons of buying insurance from Prudential, you can make an informed decision about coverage.

About Prudential

Prudential has sold life insurance products for over 140 years. The company's headquarters is in Newark, New Jersey, and it has offices in more than 20 countries throughout North and South America, Asia and Europe. Its corporate philosophy emphasizes professional ethics. Every employee must comply with a code of conduct, stating that they will put the interests of clients above commissions and present the right solutions to help customers plan for the future.

What Life Insurance Products Does Prudential Offer?

Business insurance, health insurance and life insurance are the primary focuses of Prudential. The company also sells annuities and provides investment and financial planning services. Both term and universal life products are among their individual life insurance policy options.

Term Life Insurance

Prudential offers three term life products, each of which provides coverage for a limited time period. The products include:

SimplyTerm is available for terms of 10, 15, 20 or 30 years at face values up to $1 million.
Term Essential is available for terms of 10, 15, 20 or 30 years and includes a conversion privilege that allows you to transfer your policy to permanent insurance without a medical exam. It also features a Living Needs Benefit that lets you take a portion of your death benefit early if you develop a terminal illness.
PruTerm One is a 1-year term policy that you pay for with a single premium. You receive a renewal guarantee, but the premiums increase annually.

Individual Universal Life

Prudential offers five universal life products. They all provide permanent coverage with flexible premium payment and death benefit level options. Over time, the policies build a cash value, and how that money grows is the main difference between the coverage options. You can consider:

Guaranteed universal life: This lets you alter your premium payment or change your death benefit. Prudential guarantees that your premium payments will never increase over the life of the policy as long as you pay your premium according to the outlined schedule.
Indexed universal life: Prudential ties the interest paid on the cash account to a stock market index to potentially increase growth.
Variable universal life: Prudential invests the cash account in financial instruments to offer a potentially higher rate of interest.

Survivorship Life

Through one of Prudential's survivorship life insurance policies, you can cover yourself and another person, such as your spouse or business partner. The insurance pays the death benefit after the second person on the policy dies. You can choose from universal, indexed universal or variable universal survivorship life policies.

The Pros and Cons of Prudential

Some of the benefits of Prudential life insurance include:

Robust education center: Prudential provides highly detailed information about its life insurance products online and has many planning tools and calculators available to help you choose the right type of policy and death benefit size.
Access to a variety of survivorship policies: Many insurers don't offer survivorship life, and if they do, they usually have just one product. Prudential stands out for giving you the flexibility to choose from more options.
Online applications for term life: You can obtain an instant quote for SimplyTerm life insurance and apply for coverage online immediately.
Financial advisor advice: Instead of agents, Prudential sells life insurance through financial advisors and planners who can help you choose the coverage that will suit your long-term financial needs and complement any other investments that you have.
Many rider options: Prudential gives you the ability to customize your policy by mixing and matching riders.
Acceptance of individuals with HIV: Prudential is one of the only insurance companies that doesn't automatically reject the applications of people with HIV.
Comprehensive beneficiary support: Your beneficiaries can receive assistance with financial planning and referrals to grief counselors when filing a claim. Prudential also makes filing easy with an online claim system.
High rates of customer satisfaction: Prudential has a low level of complaints compared to the size of the company, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).
Demonstrated financial strength: Prudential has an A+ rating from AM Best and has $3.6 billion in liquid assets.

Some of the drawbacks of Prudential life insurance include:

No whole life policy: Prudential doesn't offer traditional whole life, the most popular type of whole life insurance.
Limited online applications: You need to work with a financial advisor to apply for most of the company's life insurance products.
Medical history required for underwriting: Prudential doesn't offer any guaranteed acceptance life insurance policies. Most policies require you to undergo a medical exam.

Prudential Reviews: What People Are Saying

Online reviewers rave about the advice and support provided by Prudential's financial advisors. Many describe how their advisors asked questions to get a clear view of their financial needs and then clearly explained which life insurance policies were the best fit for their needs. In addition, reviewers frequently say the customer service department is helpful and sympathetic and state that Prudential's rates were more reasonable than their competitors. Complaints seem to come primarily from people whose applications were denied due to medical conditions and other factors, as the company does have strict underwriting standards.

Is Prudential Life Insurance Right for You?

You may wish to purchase Prudential life insurance if you:

Want up to $1 million in term life coverage and prefer to apply online
Need a survivorship policy to cover you and someone else
Wish to create wealth for your heirs through a life insurance policy
Have many types of investments and want to ensure your life insurance complements them
Are planning for retirement and need a complete investment strategy
Have HIV that is well controlled with therapeutics