Life insurance can sometimes be complicated to get at the best of times. The medical exams or health questionnaires can raise your premiums or leave you denied for coverall altogether. That can get doubly true if you’re over 70 or 80 years old when health problems could be more prevalent and your age alone can make you more of a risk to insure. However, you can still find life insurance for seniors over 70 or 80. Below we’ll cover what it entails and where you can find it.
Why Should Seniors Consider Life Insurance?
Typically, life insurance is purchased when someone has financial dependents to think about. When you’re a senior, your children may be financially independent or a spouse may have already passed away.
Seniors around the age of 70 or 80 often use life insurance with smaller coverage amounts to pay off bills or arrange for the coverage of final expenses like funeral costs.
You might find relevant life insurance for seniors over 70 or 80 products under search terms like senior life insurance, final expense insurance or burial insurance. Many allow coverage from $5,000 to $25,000.
What Type of Life Insurance is Best for Seniors?
When it comes to life insurance as whole, you have a few major types. Below we’ll look at if any of these work as life insurance for seniors over 80.
Whole life insurance: This is a permanent type of life insurance with a cash value component that earns regular interest. When seniors older than 70 or 80 years old buy final expense life insurance, they usually buy a small whole life insurance policy, with coverage ranging from $5,000 to $40,000 depending on health condition. Usually, in such situations, these small whole life insurance policies do not require medical exam. Learn more about Final Expense Life Insurance: Cost and Top 4 Providers.
Term life insurance: Term life is for a set amount of time, like 10 or 20 years, so this might be a good option if you know you won’t be needing a permanent policy for 60 years. Term life does not build cash value and tends to be less expensive. However, term life insurance are, in general, not available for individuals older than 60 years old.
Universal life insurance: This is another type of permanent life insurance. It includes guaranteed, indexed and variable life insurance. Indexed and variable grow cash value in relation to market performance or investments respectively, while guaranteed focuses on a fixed death benefit. Indexed (IUL) and variable (VUL) policies tend to be geared towards people who are looking to grow cash value and wealth over the long term. If you’re looking at more limited goals like covering final expenses or paying off bills, these two might not be for you. However, guaranteed universal life insurance might be an option for you if you are looking for permanent life insurance coverage to pay for your final expenses when you pass away.
>>MORE: Guaranteed Universal Life Insurance for Seniors: A Good Choice?
How to Find Life Insurance for Seniors Over 70 or 80?
You have a few options for finding life insurance if you are over 70 or 80:
- Find a company that offers life insurance without a medical exam. Often, the disqualifying factor can be certain conditions that appear into old age, so finding a place that doesn’t have a medical exam could open more options. One example is Globe Life.
- Look for companies that specifically have plans for seniors. One example is Gerber Life’s page outlining their senior life insurance products.
- You may also want to look into guaranteed issue/acceptance plans, which allow people to buy life insurance with no medical exam. These tend to be more expensive, but they still may be cheaper than buying a plan after you take a medical exam. However, be aware of what age limits are on the plans you are looking into. Many plans are only available to people between the ages of 50 to 80 years old, according to Gerber Life.
>>MORE: Best Final Expense Life Insurance Companies
If you are looking for life insurance for seniors over 70 or 80, then you may want to work with an insurance agent. These professionals can help you sort through all the options and find the best product for your age and health situation.
>>MORE: What is No Medical Exam Life Insurance? And Who Is It For?
Final Thoughts
Life insurance for seniors over 70 or 80 is typically made for people with end-of-life financial goals in mind, like paying off bills or covering funeral expenses. However, you can still find cash value options and permanent plans. If health is a concern, you can even look into companies that don’t focus on medical exams or guaranteed issue plans that don’t have medical exams.
