Today, we have a full Liberty Bankers Life Insurance review which will include the history of the company, official ratings, products, and more. If you are considering liberty bankers life as your provider, know that they are a fantastic choice for certain types of final expense and burial insurance. To find out more, please continue to read our review of Liberty Bankers Life.
2023 Review of Liberty Bankers Life
When looking into purchasing life insurance from the best final expense and burial insurance companies, most people tend to survey the most popular one or two choices and forget that the rest of the market even exists. However, you will be surprised at how good some of the younger and smaller companies are. Although they might not have the history or the brand recognition of the biggest life insurers, they are still good at what they do and that should be all that matters for you. As long as they offer good life insurance products, you can make the most of their service.
About Liberty Bankers Life
Over the years, the company has undergone a number of name changes and changes of ownership so the journey to ‘Liberty Bankers Life’ has been a long one. Back in 1958, Pilgrim Life Insurance incorporated the business as Royal Oak Life Insurance Company. After experiencing some growth through the years, they started to offer more life insurance products across 40 states. At the beginning of the nineties, the company was sold to American Hilton Corporation – an insurance company based in South Carolina.
Just before the millennium, the company was sold once again this time to Atlantic Financial Company – at this point, it is thought that $5 million worth of life insurance was in force. Over the next five years, the company would continue growing until the 2004 purchase of Heritage Guaranty Holdings. In 2006, they had over $200 million in assets and they decided to start offering various ‘classic’ life insurance options from term to whole life and everything in between.
Nowadays, there are over 6,000 agents working on the traditional life insurance products and another 4,000 for the annuity products. As the company continues to grow, they are now found in 47 states and have $1.75 billion worth of assets. Although this sounds like a lot, it is much smaller than some of the largest brand names.
Liberty Bankers Official Ratings
As always, we are going to take a look through the official ratings of Liberty Bankers to gauge a better understanding of how they perform within the market. Firstly, A.M. Best is one of the oldest and most-respected agencies within the United States and they measure the financial security of companies. For life insurers, this rating is very important because it shows all potential customers how likely they are to pay all future claims.
A.M. Best – Just recently, Liberty Bankers had their rating improved from a ‘B’ to a ‘B+’ which is a huge step forwards. With this rating, they are considered ‘Stable’ and this suggests that they are more than comfortable to pay any claims that arise. Sure, it might not be the ‘Superior’ or ‘Excellent’ we are used to seeing for the larger companies but this is still a very good rating for a company that has only been offering traditional life insurance products for a little over a decade.
BBB – Currently, Liberty Bankers Life Insurance are not accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) but they still get a rating just like everyone else. Unlike everyone else, they managed to achieve an A+ rating. Ultimately, the BBB looks to find out how well companies interact with customers so this is an important rating for all potential customers. Taking into account thirteen different factors, insurers are put onto a scale between A+ an F. With the highest rating possible, you can be confident that any issues will be resolved within a good amount of time.
Liberty Bankers Life Insurance Policies
As so many life insurance companies do these days, Liberty Bankers offer a wide variety of life insurance products as well as annuities. However, we are going to focus on their three main options here today – term life, whole life, and pre-arranged funeral.
Term Life – If you aren’t looking for a permanent policy any time soon, you will be glad to hear that Liberty Bankers offer a term life option. Just like the average term life policy, you will pay premiums every month to keep the coverage in place for a certain amount of time. As long as you pay the premiums, the beneficiary will receive the death benefit upon your passing.
With Liberty Bankers, you have various options in terms of length including 10, 15, 20, and 30-year policies.
Offered to those aged between 18-65, there are also niche policies available including term life insurance for seniors aged 70, with reduced paid up lifetime benefits when the term coverage period ends.
In order to customize your protection and ensure that your policy suits your needs, there will also be the option to add riders to the policy. If you happen to lose your income, succumb to debt, have your mortgage cancelled, or have any major shifts in financial status, the riders will keep you protected.
Whole Life – On the flip side, you can go for something a little more permanent with whole life insurance. Once again, you will pay premiums to have a death benefit in place for the beneficiary for when you die. Focusing on the same sort of community, there are riders to attach for the same sorts of issues or changes seen previously which means that the customization is also here for this type of policy. As well as the basics, there will also be Accidental Death, Children’s Term, Grandchild Term, Waiver of Premium, Accelerated Living Benefit, and more.
Overall, there are two different types of this insurance. With whole life, you have a policy that is non-participating and everything is guaranteed for life including premiums, coverage, and the cash value. However, this is then split down into ‘SIMPL’ and Modified Whole Life. With the former, it has been designed for Final Expense protection and offers four different payment plans. If you have a health problem but still a positive outlook, you could take advantage of the Modified option.
Simplified Issue Whole Life: Cash value simplified issue whole life insurance with premiums based on different rates classes that takes into account your physical condition and activities. Coverage ranges from $1,000-$25,000 or $15,000 for ages 66-80.
Modified Whole Life: Available for ages 40-80, this whole life insurance policy is used primarily for final expense or burial insurance geared towards those with a pre-existing high risk health condition. The policy’s death benefit is modified so that in years 1-3, the policy pay out equals all premiums paid plus 10%. In year four, the death benefit payout moves to 100%. And in the policy’s fifth year, the death benefit increases to 105%. Finally, in year six the death benefit payout climbs to 110%
Pre-Arranged Funeral – After you pass away, will your family be in a position to pay the money required for your funeral? Nowadays, the average funeral costs around $10,000 so this is an important question to ask. If they cannot, it could put them into crippling debt for years to come which almost seems selfish on your part; especially when you have fantastic plans available from the likes of Liberty Bankers.
If you want to remove the financial burden from your family, you can pre-arrange your funeral and make the tough decisions yourself. As well as having peace of mind, it ensures that your wishes will be adhered to after death. In total, there are five different options for pre-arranged funerals as some require health questions while others avoid this altogether. Additionally, some cover 100% of the funeral costs from the first day and others require you to wait 24 months.
Pros of Liberty Bankers Life
Before we let you get back to your day, we should explain the benefits and drawbacks of choosing Liberty Bankers. From here, you can see whether they suit your needs or not.
Array of Choices – As we have seen, there are three main life insurance options but you have choices in these that allow you to customize your policy. Whether you want to add riders or choose your coverage, you have a great chance of meeting your needs with Liberty Bankers despite their young history in life insurance.
Growing Company – As we have suggested throughout, the company is steadily growing and is in the sweet spot of being not too big but big enough to handle any demands you may have. Earlier, we saw that they had recently been promoted in their A.M. Best rating. However, what we didn’t say was that they also saw a rating increase from ‘B-’ to ‘B’ back in 2013 so they are growing at a very good pace.
Cons of Liberty Bankers Life
On the other hand, we should also point out any potential drawbacks to choosing Liberty Bankers so you don’t regret any decisions you make.
Focus on Seniors – This is not necessarily a knock on Liberty Bankers if you happen to be a senior. There is very much a focus on the senior market which sometimes leaves the younger generations left behind a little. In truth, every insurer seems to choose a focus and it just so happens that Liberty Bankers has decided upon the older crowd hence the fantastic pre-arranged funeral product and burial insurance for seniors.
Liberty Bankers Life Review Conclusion
Although we seem to say it all the time, the only way you can make good decisions is if you sit down and assess your needs first before anything else. As soon as you know your needs, you can go ahead and find the product and company that matches this. However, we should point out that some younger, smaller companies are worth considering and we have hopefully proved that today with Liberty Bankers.
At the end of the day, Liberty Bankers is but one company of many. The team at JustBuryMe is standing by to help you. Give us a call today for a free consultation.