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Our Editorial Opinion of Nationwide Life Insurance
Nationwide offers a great diversity of plans, and most people seeking life insurance will find a plan that fits their needs.
Business Insider compared Nationwide Life Insurance to the best life insurance companies and found it to be a standout option with a variety of plans, a reputation for good customer service, and some unique offerings.
Nationwide Life Insurance Overview
Nationwide offers term, whole, universal, variable universal, and indexed universal life insurance.
Nationwide’s most unique policy is its Advisory VUL plan, which provides policyholders with a financial professional to advise on cash value investment decisions. It’s a strong option for people who want to maximize returns on cash value investments but don’t necessarily have the investing experience to achieve that goal.
Nationwide also offers a no exam policy: a term life policy with a maximum death benefit of $1.5 million for up to 20 years. This policy is available online and quotes we received are lower than the industry average. However, its no exam policy does not allow for a conversion to a permanent policy. Its convertible term life option requires a medical exam to apply.
Its whole life insurance lacks any standout features, and Nationwide does not issue dividends to its policyholders.
We’d also like to note that information about Nationwide’s policies is abundantly available online. It’s a refreshing deviation for an industry that can be frustratingly tight-lipped about its product information.
It doesn’t offer complex multi-million dollar investment life insurance policies, but realistically, many buyers aren’t necessarily looking for that kind of product.
Ultimately, if you’re looking for a well-known company with various insurance products and good customer service, Nationwide is a solid choice.
Nationwide Life Insurance Pros and Cons
Nationwide Life Insurance Pros
- Offers up to $1.5 million in no exam term life insurance
- Rewards program for permanent life insurance policies
- Some policies include living access benefits (chronic/critical/terminal illness)
- Variable universal life policy option provides a financial professional for investment decisions
Nationwide Life Insurance Cons
- No exam life insurance is not convertible
- No exam term life has max term of 20 years
- Nationwide does not pay dividends on whole life insurance
Nationwide Life Insurance Plans
Nationwide Term Life Insurance
Term life insurance policies protect the insured for a set period. As such, they’re often purchased to cover a person’s prime working years or when they take on long-term debt like a mortgage. Because term life insurance policies don’t guarantee a death benefit, they’re often the cheapest insurance policy that an insurance provider can offer.
Nationwide offers two term life policies: Nationwide Life Essentials and Nationwide Guaranteed Level Term.
Nationwide Life Essentials: This option offers up to $1.5 million in death benefits with terms of 10 or 20 years. It does not require a medical exam and is available for purchase online. This policy is not available in New York.
Nationwide Guaranteed Level Term: Offers terms of 10, 15, 20, or 30 years with maximum death benefits according to an applicant’s risk profile, which includes age, income, and lifestyle. Applicants may need to take a medical exam and need to purchase through a financial professional, agent, or over the phone. This policy can be converted to a permanent policy and offers optional accelerated death benefits.
Nationwide Universal Life Insurance
Universal policies offer a permanent life insurance option with flexible payment options, plan flexibility, and a guaranteed death benefit. Depending on the policy, some allow buyers to adjust payments, and the death benefit increases with further payments.
Nationwide’s No-Lapse Guarantee universal life insurance policy offers peace of mind with a no-lapse guarantee, ensuring your policy stays in force, even when your cash value drops. It also includes some benefits for the insured, like estate planning services and living access benefits.
Death benefits for this policy start at $100,000 with an issue age limit of 85.
Nationwide Indexed Universal Life Insurance
Indexed universal life insurance offers the same flexible benefits as a traditional universal life insurance policy. However, cash value growth is linked to certain indexes, like the S&P 500.
Nationwide offers two indexed life insurance options: Accumulator II and Protector II. It also offers a survivorship IUL, which covers two people under one policy.
Nationwide IUL Accumulator II
The Accumulator account focuses on growing the insured’s cash value. It offers three investment options that vary in risk, including a S&P 500 Point-to-Point option that tracks growth.
It also offers a multi-index monthly average account, which splits interest using the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, and Dow Jones Industrial Average. Interest is calculated and credited using 50% of the best-performing index, 30% of the second-best index, and 20% of the third.
Nationwide’s last account option is a volatility control strategy that rebalances the J.P. Morgan Mercury and BNP Parabis Global H-Factor indexes to manage volatility and growth.
Alternatively, you can grow your cash value according to a fixed interest that Nationwide determines, which is guaranteed to never fall below 1%.
Regardless of your account’s performance, the Accumulator has a 0% floor, so your account will never dip into the negative.
Accumulator policyholders can qualify for Nationwide’s IUL Rewards Program when the policy turns 15. The Rewards Program credits your account with an annual rate of 0.20% of your cash value.
Nationwide IUL Protector II
The Protector account focuses on protecting the policy’s death benefit. It offers two investment options: the S&P Point-to-Point option and the multi-index monthly average account. It lacks the volatility control option included with the Accumulator.
Like the Accumulator, the Protector has a 0% floor, so your account will never dip into the negative.
Policyholders can qualify for Nationwide’s IUL Rewards program when the policy turns 21. Eligible policyholders will see a 25% reduction in the cost of insurance from the year 21 onward.
Variable Universal Life from Nationwide
Variable universal life insurance offers the flexibility of a universal life insurance with cash value that grows through investments. It offers the most cash value growth potential, but also comes with the most risk. It’s often the most expensive life insurance that a provider offers and requires the most active management.
Nationwide offers a wide variety of variable universal life insurance options, which include survivorship policies for couples. We’ll look at its three main options for individuals: VUL Accumulator, VUL Protector , and Advisory Universal Variable Life.
All policies have a $100,000 minimum.
Nationwide VUL Accumulator
This VUL offers 88 investment options across a diverse array of investment types. Policyholders also have the option to invest their cash value into indexes, similar to an IUL.
Policyholders can qualify for Nationwide’s IUL Rewards program when the policy turns 16 (earlier if the insured was 51 or older when policy was issued). Eligible policyholders will see a 25% reduction in the cost of insurance from year 21 onward.
Nationwide VUL Protector II
This VUL offers 52 investment options across a diversity of investment types. Nationwide’s IUL Rewards program cuts the cost of insurance rate by 25% once the policy has been in force for 21 years.
Nationwide Advisory Variable Universal Life
This VUL policy offers over 140 investment options and additional indexed interest strategies. To manage such an overwhelming number of investment choices, policyholders have the option to enlist the help of a professional investment advisor.
As an added bonus, the Advisory account has no surrender charges, so you’ll get 100% of your cash value if you cancel your life insurance policy.
Nationwide Whole Life Insurance
This plan option protects you for the duration of your life, unlike the set period offered by term policies. This life insurance option has set premiums, consistent growth, and a tax-free death benefit. With this offering, you’ll get living benefits such as chronic illness benefits, critical illness benefits, and terminal illness benefits.
This policy also has a $10,000 minimum for Nontobacco Standard, $100,000 for Nontobacco Preferred and Standard Preferred, and $250,000 for Nontobacco Preferred Plus. Applicants up to 80 years old can get insured.
Additional Coverage Options from Nationwide
Want more coverage? Nationwide also offers several riders. If you’re unsure or want guidance, an agent can clarify and answer questions about riders and overall coverage.
Long-Term Care Rider: Offers a monthly cash indemnity for policyholders to spend how they want, with no receipts necessary.
Living Access Benefits: A suite consisting of a chronic illness rider, critical illness rider, and terminal illness rider. If you face a debilitating illness, you can access a portion of your death benefit to pay for care.
Accidental Death Benefit Rider: Offers additional coverage if the insured dies from an accident.
Children’s Insurance Rider: Provides term coverage for children, including those who are born after purchasing this rider.
Extended No-Lapse Guarantee (ENLG) Rider: Guarantees your death benefit for your entire lifetime. Only available with certain permanent life insurance policies.
Overloan Lapse Protection Rider II: Helps to keep your policy in force when taking out loans against your policy.
Waiver of Monthly Deductions Rider: Waives monthly deductions if you become disabled.
Waiver of Premium Rider: Credits a monthly premium to your policy if you become disabled.
Nationwide Life Insurance Cost
Nationwide only provides its no exam term life insurance quotes online. All other quotes must be done with a financial professional, agent, or over the phone.
To get a better idea of how much Nationwide life insurance costs, we obtained quotes for a 20-year term policy with a $500,000 death benefit for a non-smoking applicant in excellent health and compared it to the average cost of the same policy, according to Policygenius.
How to File a Claim With Nationwide
Filing a life insurance claim with Nationwide is reasonably straightforward. Visit the claims website or call 1-800-848-6331. When filing a life insurance claim, you’ll need to provide a copy of the death certificate. Your funeral director can help you acquire this.
Nationwide Life Insurance Customer Reviews and Ratings
Nationwide has overwhelmingly negative reviews online, receiving 1.5 stars on Trustpilot and 1.14 stars on its Better Business Bureau page. These reviews concern Nationwide as a whole, not just its life insurance products.
Online reviews of life insurance companies are often overwhelmingly negative, as people who leave reviews often only do so because they have something to say, which is usually negative.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ complaint index rates insurance companies based on how many complaints they receive against their share of the market. A 1.00 means that a company has an expected number of complaints based on its size. A lower score indicates fewer complaints than expected and a higher number indicates more complaints than expected. Nationwide scored 0.12, indicating that it has far fewer complaints than expected.
Nationwide placed 5 out of 21 life insurance companies in JD Power’s 2024 customer service survey, receiving a 666/1,000. For reference, the study average was 648/1,000 and State Farm placed first in the survey with a 699.
Nationwide Life Insurance received an A+ financial stability rating from AM Best.
Nationwide Life Insurance Alternatives
Nationwide Life Insurance vs. Progressive Life Insurance
Progressive is another of the largest insurance companies in the U.S. and is well-known within the industry, particularly for its auto and homeowners insurance. However, Progressive also sells life insurance, offering whole, term, short-term, and final expense policies.
Progressive’s term, short-term, and final expense policies do not require medical exams. Meanwhile, Nationwide only offers one no exam term life policy that offers a maximum of $1.5 million in coverage for up to 20-year terms. That said, Nationwide offers a greater variety of permanent life insurance, especially those with an investment component.
Quotes for Progressive’s term life insurance came back more expensive than Nationwide’s. A Progressive 20-year term policy worth $500,000 would cost a 30-year-old non-smoking female $34.80 monthly and a male $40.46 monthly. Meanwhile, the same policy from Nationwide would cost $19.61 for a female and $24.18 for a male.
Progressive actually underwrites very few of its policies, outsourcing most of its underwriting to partner providers like Mutual of Omaha, Protective Life, and Transamerica, to name a few. While its partners are all financially stable, the unpredictability is a notable downside compared to Nationwide.
Ultimately, Nationwide comes out with better options, especially for those looking for more expensive policies that offer greater potential for cash value growth.
Read our Progressive life insurance review.
Nationwide Life Insurance vs. State Farm Life Insurance
State Farm offers term, whole, and universal life insurance. State Farm’s term life insurance is roughly comparable to Nationwide, though Nationwide’s term life insurance is a little more forgiving to older applicants, with higher maximum issue ages. Nationwide also offers a no exam life insurance policy that can be purchased entirely online with up to $1.5 million in coverage.
State Farm’s whole life insurance offers greater potential for cash value growth, issuing dividends to its policyholders each year. While dividends are not guaranteed, State Farm paid out $725 million in 2023. Meanwhile, Nationwide’s whole life insurance does not offer dividends.
State Farm’s universal life insurance is comparable to Nationwide, though its minimum face values are lower than Nationwide. This is convenient for people looking for a cheaper universal life insurance policy. However, for most people considering universal life insurance, the price difference between a $50,000 policy and a $100,000 policy may not make a huge difference.
State Farm lacks any permanent policies that prioritize investments like indexed or variable life insurance policies. On the other hand, Nationwide has an abundance of investment-focused permanent life insurance policies, even offering one that includes consultations from a financial professional.
State Farm has a reputation for outstanding customer service, placing first in JD Power’s 2024 customer satisfaction survey of 21 life insurance customers, while Nationwide placed 5th.
Ultimately, the choice between State Farm and Nationwide comes down to your preferences. State Farm is better for people who value customer service and people looking for whole life insurance. However, for people who want their life insurance to grow in value, Nationwide is the better choice.
Read our State Farm life insurance review.
Nationwide Life Insurance FAQ
Yes, Nationwide life insurance offers a no exam term policy with up to $1.5 million in coverage for up to 20 years. It does not offer no exam permanent life insurance.
Yes, Nationwide life insurance offers level term policies that can be converted to a permanent policy without additional medical exams.
While most Nationwide permanent life insurance has cancellation fees, its Advisory variable universal life insurance does not have surrender charges, meaning you can keep 100% of your cash value.
Why You Should Trust Us: How We Reviewed Nationwide Life Insurance
The four primary criteria Business Insider uses to review life insurance providers are affordability, customer service, reliability, and company offerings.
Companies receive five stars for cost when premiums are close to the industry average cost of life insurance. According to our article on the average cost of life insurance, a life insurance policy may run you about $40 to $55 a month. However, cheap life insurance doesn’t mean you’re getting quality coverage. So, we weigh affordability against the company’s offerings, customer service, and other factors.
We used the latest JD Power life insurance study to determine which company offers quality customer service. Approximately 3,000 life insurance customers score insurance companies yearly based on communication, interaction, price, product offerings, and statement satisfaction. Companies ranking above the industry average of 774 points have strong customer service.
We also used AM Best, a renowned credit rating agency, and the NAIC’s complaint index to evaluate a company’s financial stability and trustworthiness. AM Best tells us a company’s financial health, and the NAIC’s complaint index scores a company based on the aggregate total of complaints it receives.
Finally, we looked at what each company has to offer, including policy options, riders, and features like medical exam waivers. We also determined which demographic would most benefit from the company based on its products and prices.
Read more about how Business Insider rates life insurance.