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Pacific Life Insurance Review 2020
This financially stable, well-reviewed company offers a vast menu of life insurance policies.
Pacific Life Insurance Company is a long-standing company that offers a huge variety of coverage options, including a dozen distinct universal life policies. That puts Pacific Life into the best universal life insurance category.
This insurer also provides additional financial products such as annuities and mutual funds. Because this insurer has high financial ratings and a solid record of claims and customer service, it’s one of the best life insurance companies.
Who might choose Pacific Life for life insurance?
- Couples: Pacific offers several survivorship options among its universal life policies.
- People looking for universal life: This insurer offers a combined dozen policies for universal, indexed universal, and variable universal life insurance.
- People with sleep apnea or high cholesterol: Pacific has created a niche of offering highly competitive rates for people with these conditions.
Pacific Life insurance policies
Pacific Life offers the following types of life insurance policies:
- Term
- Whole (with or without long-term care benefits)
- Universal
- Survivorship
- Indexed universal
- Variable universal
Pacific Life term life insurance
Pacific offers three term life options: two level premium policies and one annual renewable term (ART) policy. Pacific PRIME Term and PL Promise Term are both level term policies with options for 10-, 15-, 20-, and 30-year terms. PL Promise also adds a 25-year option. Meanwhile, Pacific Term ART allows you to purchase one year of coverage at a time, but your rate will likely rise each year.
Pacific Life whole life insurance
Pacific Life offers six whole life options: four with long-term care benefits and two without.
Pacific PremierCare Choice 100 and Pacific PremierCare Choice Max are single-premium policies, while Pacific PremierCare Choice Multi-Pay 100 and Pacific PremierCare Choice Multi-Pay Max spread their payments out over five or more years. Each policy includes a return of premium rider, so you get your money back if you surrender the policy.
Whole life policies without living benefits include the Flex Protector II and Flex XV.
Pacific Life universal life insurance
With Pacific Life’s universal policies, you can guarantee coverage until a specific age (typically anywhere between 95 and 121). You can do this by choosing a policy designed for this purpose, such as the Versa-Flex NLG or PL Promise GUL, or by adding a rider to a Versa-Flex policy.
Couples will be glad to know there’s a survivorship policy called the Pacific Estate Preserver III. Learn more about survivorship life insurance.
Pacific Life indexed universal life insurance
Pacific Life’s indexed universal (IUL) products have a cash value that grows based on an established index (typically the S&P 500, but you may be able to choose another with some products). Choose from the Pacific Discovery Xelerator IUL 2, Pacific Indexed Accumulator 6 (PIA 6), or Pacific Discover Protector IUL.
This insurer also offers a survivorship IUL policy called Pacific Indexed Estate Preserver 2.
Pacific Life variable life insurance
If you want to choose how your cash value is invested, Pacific Life's variable universal life (VUL) policies could be the way to go.
According to the Pacific Life website, “In addition to death benefit protection, VUL offers the ability to allocate among purely market-driven and guaranteed investment options.”1 The insurer offers four VUL products, one of which is survivorship life insurance, which covers two people with a single policy.
How much does life insurance with Pacific Life cost?
Every company prices their life insurance policies a little differently, so we sampled rates with Pacific, including those in the following tables.
Pacific Life sample rates
Sample quotes obtained from a Clearlink partner and are for illustration purposes only. Actual quotes may vary. Data effective 7/16/2019.
Sample quotes obtained from a Clearlink partner and are for illustration purposes only. Actual quotes may vary. Data effective 7/16/2019.
Pacific Life's prices are a bit higher than the best life insurance rates, but as with most companies, your rates will depend on your health. People who have sleep apnea and high cholesterol may find competitive prices with Pacific, while former smokers or people who have high blood pressure might find better rates elsewhere.
Things to consider about Pacific Life
Pacific Life Insurance Company’s standout feature is the sheer number of choices.
Extensive policy menu
Pacific offers all the main types of life insurance: term, whole, universal, indexed universal, and variable universal. And within each of those categories, this insurer sells several products.
Each product is designed to fit a different kind of person. Among Pacific Life’s term policies, for example, there’s one for people who want the option to convert to permanent life later (PRIME Term), one for people who have no idea what the future holds (Term ART), and one for older adults (PL Promise Term). And you can expect a similar variety for whole, universal, indexed universal, and variable universal life insurance too.
With so many choices, you’d think Pacific Life’s policy options could get a little confusing. Instead, its website breaks down each policy available in your area by type and product. It even pulls out the main benefit of choosing each policy over the others and makes it easy to download each product’s brochure or a sample policy.
Our only beef is that you can’t get a quote right there on the Pacific Life website. If you’d like to see what this insurance might cost you, get a Pacific Life insurance quote.
How Pacific Life stacks up
Pacific Life Insurance Company has been around for over 150 years and has the financial stability ratings to back up that experience.
Is Pacific Life financially stable?
Table created using information available at AMBest.com, StandardAndPoors.com, Moodys.com, and FitchRatings.com. Data effective 7/16/2019.
AM Best, which rates only insurance providers, gives Pacific Life its highest rating for financial strength.2 S&P gives Pacific its second-highest mark,3 while Moodys and Fitch each show their third-highest rating.4, 5 While these entities may vary in their exact ratings, these scores reveal a robust and stable company that's likely to be around for many years.
Claims and customer service
Pacific Life has an outstanding claims history and offers above average customer service. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), Pacific Life Insurance Company received just two complaints regarding its individual life insurance and six total for all products in 2018. That’s like a drop in the bucket, considering this insurer earned $3.7 billion in premiums.6
Pacific Life also scores consistently well on J.D. Power’s annual US Life Insurance Study, although the company recently saw a drop in overall customer satisfaction. In 2018, Pacific scored 783 out of 1,000 (the industry average sat at 779).7 That’s down from an incredible 808 in 2017, which put Pacific in the top three that year.8 We’re hopeful Pacific will bring their service back up to such heights again soon.
Bottom line: Pacific Life offers more choices than most
And with solid financial ratings and customer service, there’s a good chance Pacific could be the right insurer for you.
Whether Pacific sounds like the right insurance company for you or not, it never hurts to shop around. Compare life insurance rates from several brands to make sure you cover all your bases.
Need help understanding how life insurance works? Read up here:
- Learn more about universal life insurance.
- If you’re looking for standalone long-term care insurance, see the best companies for that.
Pacific Life FAQ
You may be able to apply for a Pacific PRIME Term policy without taking a life insurance exam. You’ll likely have to answer a medical questionnaire and have more limited policy options (such as term or death benefit limitations) to buy this no exam life insurance.
While Pacific doesn’t seem to target older adults specifically, its PL Promise Term offers fluidless (no blood or urine tests) underwriting for older adults. Check out the best life insurance for seniors or the best final expense companies (a type of insurance that many older adults prefer).
Sources
1. Pacific Life, “Variable Universal Life Insurance”
2. AM Best, “Pacific Life Insurance Company”
3. Standard and Poors, “Pacific Life Insurance Co.”
4. Moodys, “Ratings”
5. Fitch Ratings, “Fitch Ratings”
6. National Association of Insurance Commissioners, “Pacific Life Ins Co”
7. J.D. Power, “Life Insurers’ Focus on Customer Experience is Key for Increasing Satisfaction, J. D. Power Finds”
8. J.D. Power, “Life Insurance Customer Satisfaction Reaches All-Time High, J.D. Power Finds”