Policygenius Review [2024]: Making Life Insurance Easy and Affordable

If you want to find the best life insurance rates available from popular companies, consider giving Policygenius a try. The typical process of buying insurance can be exhausting because you have to research each company and compare rates and benefits across all the different insurance products.

With Policygenius, you get to quickly compare life insurance quotes and then decide which insurance policy fits you best. In this Policygenius review, you’ll learn how Policygenius works, the types of insurance it offers, and how you can save money with this free service.

Policygenius basics

Type(s) of life insurance offered	Term and Whole
Coverage amount	Varies depending on which quote chosen
Medical exam required	No
Term options	Varies depending on which quote chosen
Eligible ages	Varies
Availability	All 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia
	Visit Policygenius

What is Policygenius?

Policygenius is an online insurance broker that was founded in 2014 in New York City by Jennifer Fitzgerald and Francois de Lame. The mission of the company is to help people easily find the financial protection they need while also feeling good about the buying process. This is accomplished by Policygenius guiding you through the steps of finding the best life insurance rates and answering all your questions along the way.

Policygenius is a legitimate company that’s been Better Business Bureau-accredited for seven years (as of October 2020). Its BBB rating is an A- and it also has an excellent 4.8 out of five stars rating on Trustpilot.

To date, Policygenius has helped more than 30 million people shop for insurance and has protected its customers with more than $60 billion in coverage.

How does Policygenius work?

Policygenius is an insurance broker, not an insurance company. This means it doesn’t provide insurance policies itself. Instead, it works with a range of insurance companies to provide you with policies you can compare and choose from. The result is that you can create a free account with Policygenius and easily look up life insurance policies from the best companies in your area.

Policygenius makes the insurance buying process a lot simpler because you don’t have to worry about researching each and every company and policy out there. Policygenius streamlines the process and offers you a best-price guarantee on rates. If you find a lower price elsewhere, Policygenius will do its best to try to beat that rate for you.

In addition, you can get live help from Policygenius insurance experts whenever you need it. The best part? The advice you’re getting from Policygenius agents is far more likely to be unbiased when it comes to pushing any single company because they’re paid salary wages instead of commission. This is typically not the case when you deal with an independent insurance broker.

What life insurance does Policygenius offer?

Policygenius offers two types of life insurance policies from the providers it works with: term life insurance and permanent life insurance. The most common form of permanent life insurance is whole life insurance.

In the debate between term vs. whole life insurance, there is no clear winner. The right policy for you will depend on what your insurance needs and how much money you can afford to spend. Here, we’ll go over the basics of both term life and whole life insurance. This will help you know which one would be a better fit for you.

Term

Term life insurance provides coverage for a certain number of years, called a term, that you choose when picking a policy. With Policygenius, the minimum policy length is 10 years, and the maximum is 40 years. This type of range makes it easy to choose a long period of time in which you’ll have coverage in case you die.

Most people typically choose a term amount that covers the years they’re still supporting their children or other family members. You can ask yourself a few questions to get a good idea of how long your term should be and how much life insurance coverage you need:

• Do you have a spouse or children? Do you take care of anyone else?
• If you were to die today, what kind of financial support would your dependents need to survive without you?
• How long should your term be if you want to help put your kids through school?
• How much do you currently make and how much coverage would you need to replace that income for 10, 20, or more than 30 years?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll know around how much coverage you’ll need and how long you’ll need it for. With term life insurance, your beneficiaries would receive a tax-free, lump sum equal to your coverage amount if you were to die. Also, because term life insurance is for a set period of time, it’s often much less expensive than whole life insurance. But keep in mind, this lower expense is because this type of life insurance won’t pay anything if you die outside the policy term.

Overall, term life insurance could be a good fit for you if you’re looking to have a less expensive life insurance policy specifically for the years when loved ones would need financial protection.

Whole life

As the name implies, this type of life insurance policy covers you for your whole life. This means whole life insurance pays a death benefit no matter when you die. As a result, it typically costs much more than term life insurance.

Because of how life insurance works, premiums generally increase the older you get. With whole life insurance, you may be able to lock in a lower rate when you’re younger and in good health, and then you can keep a low insurance rate throughout your life.

Because the premiums can be high on whole life insurance policies, these types of plans aren’t for everyone. However, consider these situations that might call for having whole life insurance:

• High income: If you make a lot of money and/or have a large net worth, it could make sense to have a whole life insurance policy. The premiums wouldn’t be as much of a concern and your beneficiaries wouldn’t have to worry about changing their lifestyle if your income was lost.
• Complex estate planning: Tax-free life insurance proceeds can help cover estate taxes instead of drawing on funds from other assets. The same proceeds are also available immediately for your beneficiaries to use if needed.
• Special needs dependent: If you have dependents with permanent disabilities, you can’t count on term life insurance because it covers only a certain window of time. You’ll need whole life insurance to ensure your dependents are financially taken care of for the entirety of their long-term care.

Although term life insurance may be less expensive, whole life insurance can be the smarter solution for specific situations.

Riders

Life insurance riders are additional policies that can be added to your life insurance policy to provide more coverage for specific circumstances. They make it easier to tailor a policy to your personal needs. You may want to consider adding specific riders to your policy if you think it would be beneficial to have them.

Riders may include:

• Child protection: Life insurance coverage also includes all eligible children.
• Disability waiver of premium: Your premiums will be waived for a certain period of time if you’re disabled because of a qualifying event.
• Accelerated death benefit: You may receive a portion of the death benefit payout early if you’re diagnosed with a qualifying terminal illness.
• Accidental death benefit: An additional death benefit is paid out on top of your policy’s base death benefit if the policyholder had a qualifying accidental death.

Take note that not all life insurance policies have options for all or sometimes any riders. As you go through the Policygenius life insurance selection process, you can compare different insurance plans and see which riders, if any, are available.

If a specific rider is important to you, it could influence your choice on which insurance company you choose to go with.

How to maximize your savings with Policygenius

Policygenius is a free-to-use service that helps you find the best policy for your needs. Because it’s free to use, you’re already saving money even during your shopping stage. You’ll also save yourself a lot of time by using Policygenius to find and compare the best insurance rates for you.

If you had to research every available life insurance policy from every provider in the insurance industry, it would take a lot of time to figure out which company offered the best rates. You’d also need to see if every company was reputable and provided the types of insurance coverages you were looking for. With Policygenius, you skip the exhausting research and get right to comparing insurance quotes from top companies.

Once you’ve started a search for the amount of coverage you want and the length of time you need, Policygenius populates a list of the available policies. You’ll see the name of each insurance provider and some details about the company, including when it was founded, how many customers it has, and its BBB customer service rating.

You’ll also see the price of monthly premiums and there will be an option to compare two different policies. Comparing insurance quotes will give you an in-depth view at each company and the policy they provide. This is also where you can see if a policy has any rider options available.

If you simply want to lower your life insurance cost, you’ll like that Policygenius automatically puts the least expensive quotes at the top of the list. However, it’s a good idea to do a few comparisons between different policies with similar prices to see whether they have the coverages you’re looking for. Narrowing it down to a few choices instead of choosing the first one you see will help you decide which policy might be the best for you.

How to buy life insurance from Policygenius

To buy life insurance from Policygenius, you’ll need to know a few basics as you get started:

• Online insurance broker: As an online insurance broker, the entire application process for a life insurance policy can be done in just a few minutes right from the Policygenius website.
• Basic information: Every application requires specific information, like gender, zip code, height, weight, family history, personal history of certain health conditions, and more.
• Coverage amount: You’ll choose the amount of coverage you’re looking for.
• Policy length: You’ll choose how long you want your coverage to last. This includes term life insurance between 10 to 40 years or a whole life insurance policy.
• Medical exam: Some insurance providers require you to take a life insurance medical exam before they can send you an offer. If a policy doesn’t require a medical exam, the quote will say “No medical exam” next to it.
• Riders: When you compare quotes, you’ll see whether any riders are available to add.
• Price lock: Once your policy goes into effect, your price will be locked in on certain quotes. This means it can’t change as you get older or conditions with your health change.
• Timing: Expect to wait four to six weeks to hear back about offers from insurance providers once you’ve completed your online application.

Common questions about Policygenius

Bottom line

Now that you’ve learned about Policygenius and how life insurance works — what do you think? Is life insurance a good investment? For millions of people across the U.S., including parents and primary breadwinners, life insurance is more than just good, it’s essential. Without this financial protection, it’d be hard to have peace of mind for the future.

If you use Policygenius and have a great experience buying life insurance, be sure to check out its other offerings as well. Policygenius provides resources to help you find homeowners insurance, renters insurance, auto insurance, disability insurance, pet insurance, health insurance, and more.