Banner Life insurance review

This top market leader excels at low-cost protection — even if you’ve had medical issues.

As Benjamin Franklin famously opined, nothing’s certain in life except death and taxes. Which is one reason for buying life insurance: to provide some comfort for your family and your creditors when the inevitable occurs.

But which life insurance is best and how much do you need — and for how long?

A term life policy might get the job done at the lowest cost, but you expose yourself to policy lapse at the end of the term.

To help solve that problem, Banner Life Insurance Company offers a conversion feature that lets you switch a term policy to universal life coverage, which provides the permanency of whole life while also building up a cash value.

Company profile

Name Banner Life Insurance

Headquarters Urbana, Maryland

Parent company Legal & General, London

Products Term and universal (permanent) life insurance

Ratings A+ from A.M. Best; A+ from the Better Business Bureau

Policyholders 1.2 million US customers with $678 billion of coverage in force at the end of 2016

Assets Nearly $4 billion at the end of 2016

What is Banner Life?

A unit of London-based Legal & General, Banner, with its William Penn subsidiary in New York, operates as part of Legal & General America and offers coverage throughout the US.

It provides the stability of a history that stretches back over 180 years and the market strength of commanding over $1.1 trillion in assets under management and some 10 million customers worldwide. A.M. Best ranks it the world’s seventh-largest insurer.

What is Banner Life known for?

Banner has a reputation for being among the most aggressive term life providers, meaning it will take on risks by covering people other insurers might turn away. And it is known to be among the most competitive on pricing, particularly for high-risk applicants such as those with diabetes.