American National Life Insurance Review 2020

Thang Truong
Thang Truong
Updated on:

American National Insurance Company is based in Galveston, TX. They insure all fifty states and they offer all manners of insurance, from life to health, homeowners to classic car insurance. They were founded in 1905 by William Moody Jr. They are an S&P 500 company. At the end of 2019, they had $28.6 billion dollars in assets and paid over $88 million dollars in dividends. If you’re looking to bundle all of your insurance products with one company, American National Insurance might be a good fit for you.

Pros and Cons of American National Life Insurance

ProsCons
– They offer a full-range of insurance products
– Great financial strength ratings
– Some policies don’t require a medical exam
– Fewer than average complaints
– No online quoting (for life insurance)
– Difficult to ascertain rates

Products Offered by American National Life Insurance

You can get almost any type of insurance through American National Insurance. They offer the following:

  • Life insurance
  • Annuities
  • Business insurance
  • Health insurance
  • Renters insurance
  • Homeowners insurance
  • Auto insurance
  • Classic Car insurance
  • Farm insurance
  • RV insurance

They offer a variety of products under the life insurance category as well. 

Whole Life insurance: American National life insurance pays dividends to their shareholders, which is a nice feature in a whole life insurance policy. Whole life insurance lasts your entire life and provides access to a cash value account on the side. Premiums are fixed and will remain the same throughout your life. They have a lot of different payment plans to choose from, such as 20 Pay Life, where you pay for the policy in 20 years but are insured for the rest of your life, and Paid-up at 90 and 95 options. 

Term Life Insurance: Term life insurance is the most affordable. Term insurance is available in terms of 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 years. They offer Signature Term, which is a traditional underwritten policy, and 5-year renewable term, in which your premiums change every five years. All of American National’s term insurance products can be converted to permanent life insurance

Universal Life Insurance: Universal Life insurance is a type of permanent life insurance that also includes a cash value account. You can adjust both your payments and the death benefit as the need arises. You can borrow against the cash value or withdraw from it to help with unexpected expenses. 

Indexed Universal Life: Indexed Universal Life insurance (IUL) earns interests on the cash value account based on the performance of an index like the S&P 500. You’ll earn interest based on the performance of the stock market index. There is a floor, so you will never lose money with this account.

IUL has become more and more popular for retirement savings purposes thanks to its advantage tax-free withdrawals. People save money in the IUL’s cash value account which earns interests similar to the popular indexes like the S&P 500; never loses money; and provides withdrawals or distribution completely tax-free. Learn more about why IUL is good for retirement savings.

>>MORE: Compare Indexed Universal Life Insurance with Whole Life Insurance

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Guaranteed Universal Life: Guaranteed universal life insurance is another type of universal life insurance. It offers permanent and guaranteed coverage or death benefit at a much more affordable premium compared to whole life insurance. However, its cash value account doesn’t offer much value. If you are looking for a permanent life insurance policy with the plan to have access to cash value account, you should consider a different product. If you only care for the guaranteed and permanent death benefit for your family, guaranteed universal life insurance is great option. American National is also known to offer one of the most competitive prices for its guaranteed universal life insurance product.

>>MORE: Compare Guaranteed Universal Life Insurance with Whole Life Insurance

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American National has several riders which could come in handy, such as the accelerated death benefit rider or the guaranteed cash-out rider, where you can cash out the policy if you no longer need the insurance. 

They can also customize your policy by offering a number of riders:

  • Accelerated death benefit
  • Disability rider
  • Waiver of premium
  • Children’s term 
  • Cash-out rider
  • Terminal illness rider

Not every rider is available for every policy. 

Financial Strength Rating of American National Life Insurance

A.M. Best gives American National Insurance company an A rating, or Excellent. They predict a stable outlook. This is important because you want to feel confident that your insurance company can meet its financial obligations. 

Customer Satisfaction Rating of American National Life Insurance

American National does not appear on J.D. Power’s life insurance study. They don’t appear on their auto or homeowners’ insurance lists either, which is a little surprising. With no J.D. Power ratings, we’ll look at other sources.

The BBB has not accredited American National Insurance. Actually, they don’t even rate them—their score is “NR” for not rated. The BBB says it doesn’t have enough information to provide a rating. Given how big American National is and how many different kinds of insurance they offer, this is also surprising. There are nine one-star reviews and nine complaints on the BBB’s website. The reviews run the gamut from disability insurance to homeowner’s insurance, although one is about the life insurance, but it’s not entirely clear and it seems the policy holder misunderstood what he was getting. 

Given how many types of insurance American National offers, nine does not seem like a lot of complaints.

Consumer Complaints Rating of American National Life Insurance

As far as life insurance goes, the NAIC gives American National Insurance a complaint ratio of .34. The median average is 1.0, so a complaint ratio of .34 means there are fewer complaints than expected.

Digital Experience Rating of American National Life Insurance

American National Life insurance sells policies through insurance agents. Therefore, there is no online quoting. This is inconvenient, especially for term policies because it makes comparison shopping difficult. You could call and receive quotes from all the insurance companies you’re considering, but it’s time consuming and many people don’t like to do this because they worry they will be pressured into buying before they are ready. 

They do offer online quoting for some other kinds of insurance, such as home and auto. 

There is a responsive online chat bot if you have any questions. 

If you want to file a claim, you’ll have to print out a form and mail or email it. There is a list of all the forms you can download and print on the website. 

Online, you can pay your bill and manage your account settings. It says you can skip the call and just file claims online, but we were unable to verify this. 

They do have a mobile app, which allows you to view policy information, pay your bill, or submit an auto or homeowners claim.

Last Thoughts

If the thought of shopping around with numerous insurance companies to fill all of your insurance needs fills you with dread, you may want to bundle them all under one company. American National Insurance might work for you.

Thang Truong

Thang Truong covers small business insurance and small business success at BravoPolicy. He is a licensed P&C insurance agent. Previously, he held product leadership positions at realtor.com, Capital One, NerdWallet, and Mulberry Technology. He holds a MBA degree from UC Berkeley - Haas School of Business.

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