Both term and whole life policies are available for people over 50 years old. There is not any special kind of life insurance or line of life insurance for people of this age. Every company offers insurance to this age group in their normal insurance lines.
If you are concerned about getting denied coverage, don’t be! It is not difficult to get life insurance coverage, even if you are a senior citizen. Furthermore, getting life insurance after age 50 doesn’t even need to be very expensive. There are many affordable options available for people who are more than five decades old, and it may be surprising just how low the premiums are.
Life Ant can help you get the best price on a new policy by comparing quotes across providers and getting you the best protection available. We help people obtain affordable protection every day. To get quotes for a policy for you, start by entering your zip code in our life insurance quote comparison tool at the top of the page.
How Much Will It Cost?
Whole life insurance can be very expensive, but term life insurance is not. Here is a table of various quotes for people over 5o years of age:
| Company | Age | Sex | Face Amount | Term Length | Monthly Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mutual of Omaha | 50 | Male | $250,000 | 10 Years | $23.65 |
| Protective | 50 | Male | $250,000 | 10 Years | $24.18 |
| Pacific Life | 50 | Male | $250,000 | 10 Years | $24.31 |
| Mutual Of Omaha | 50 | Male | $500,000 | 10 Years | $41.50 |
| Protective Life | 50 | Male | $500,000 | 10 Years | $41.90 |
| Pacific Life | 50 | Male | $500,000 | 10 Years | $42.23 |
| Protective | 50 | Male | $250,000 | 20 Years | $39.70 |
| Banner William Penn | 50 | Male | $250,000 | 20 Years | $39.89 |
| Pacific Life | 50 | Male | $250,000 | 20 Years | $39.90 |
| Protective | 50 | Male | $500,000 | 20 Years | $71.91 |
| Banner William Penn | 50 | Male | $500,000 | 20 Years | $72.57 |
| Pacific Life | 50 | Male | $500,000 | 20 Years | $72.58 |
| Cincinnati Life | 60 | Male | $250,000 | 10 Years | $58.30 |
| Prudential Life | 60 | Male | $250,000 | 10 Years | $59.33 |
| Mutual of Omaha | 60 | Male | $250,000 | 10 Years | $59.38 |
| Cincinnati Life | 60 | Male | $500,000 | 10 Years | $104.72 |
| Prudential Life | 60 | Male | $500,000 | 10 Years | $110.85 |
| Mutual of Omaha | 60 | Male | $500,000 | 10 Years | $111.12 |
| Protective Life | 60 | Male | $250,000 | 20 Years | $106.64 |
| Pacific Life | 60 | Male | $250,000 | 20 Years | $106.67 |
| Cincinnati Life | 60 | Male | $250,000 | 20 Years | $109.34 |
| Protective Life | 60 | Male | $500,000 | 20 Years | $199.50 |
| Pacific Life | 60 | Male | $500,000 | 20 Years | $201.44 |
| Cincinnati Life | 60 | Male | $500,000 | 20 Years | $201.96 |
| Protective Life | 60 | Female | $250,000 | 10 Years | $41.72 |
| Protective Life | 60 | Female | $500,000 | 10 Years | $73.88 |
| Principal Life | 60 | Female | $250,000 | 20 Years | $77.18 |
| Lincoln Life | 60 | Female | $500,000 | 20 Years | $143.11 |
Notice the factors that affect the price. Whether you are male or female is significant because females live longer than males on average. The term length starts to become more significant for people who are getting near 60 years old because many people die between ages 70 and 80. A 10-year coverage length is so much less expensive than a 20-year policy in large part for this reason. Similarly, the exact age of the insured person starts to become a big factor since the odds of dying start rising after age 50 each year. The face amount of the policy has a big effect on price for the obvious reason that it is the amount the insurance company needs to payout. The higher the face amount, the higher the price.
Note that all of the quoted prices here were for a premier health rating. If the insured person has any medical issues, the price can rise quite a bit depending on how severe they are and how low a health rating gets assigned. See here for ways to improve your health rating.
Don’t worry too much about your health rating though. Even for people who only qualify for lower rating classes, term life insurance coverage can still be very affordable. If you are over 50 and would like an exact quote based upon your personal situation, please start by entering your zip code at the top. You will then be able to review your quotes from each company after filling out a short informational form regarding the particulars of your desired coverage.
Note that whole life insurance costs may vary significantly from term coverage because the policy is guaranteed to last for the insured person’s entire life, and whole life insurance has a cash value which eventually must equal the face amount. Depending upon how premium payments are structured, and how dividend payments are used, a whole life policy may cost about 8-10 times as much as a term policy in premium payments initially, but with dividend payments reducing premium charges the cost will decrease over time.
Why Is It Still So Affordable Over 50?
Life insurance for people over age 50 is becoming more affordable in part because people are living longer and they are also dying early less often (a subtle but important distinction to insurance companies). The rate that people die is known as the mortality expectancy to insurers, and what has occurred recently has been a drop in mortality expectations.
In other words, people on average are living longer, and it means that life insurance companies expect to pay fewer claims than they did in the past. Because they expect to pay out on fewer claims, they are able to charge less for their policies. This is beneficial to consumers because it means that the price of life insurance has fallen rapidly in recent years. This is even more important to people over age 50, because prices are much more sensitive to mortality expectations at this age than at younger ages.
More Competition Among Insurance Providers
Another major reason life insurance has become less expensive is rooted purely in business practices and the supply and demand characteristics of the marketplace.
There is more competition in the life insurance market than ever before, and life insurance companies have dropped their prices in order to stay competitive with their peers. This has benefited people of all ages when it comes to getting affordable life insurance policies.
Better Underwriting
This only benefits people who are in relatively good health, but it has dropped prices for people who are assigned good health ratings. As science and medicine have improved, insurance companies are able to understand more clearly how long someone is likely to live given their current state of health. Insurance companies can separate out people who are most likely to die later of natural causes and give them much lower costs of insurance.
Don’t worry if you are not in perfect health, you can still enjoy low premium rates as well, just not as low as those people who are in the best of health. Keep in mind that the decreasing cost of insurance has made coverage more affordable for everyone.
Getting an Accurate Quote
Quoting for life insurance is a relatively easy process. It takes about 5 minutes to fill out the information needed to provide a relatively accurate quote. Keep in mind that life insurance is the hardest form of insurance to quote accurately because so much depends on your health and the underwriting process. Most people who are 50 or older are not in perfect health. While life insurance companies don’t expect perfect health, they do require it to get the best health rating. When you get your quote, a good tip is to choose a standard rating, or at least one rating below premier/preferred plus, which are generally the nomenclatures used by insurance companies to denote the top health ratings.
If you have heart disease, high blood pressure, or any of the myriad of other common ailments to someone entering their golden years keep in mind that you will not qualify for the best rates, but you are still able to get perfectly affordable coverage in most cases.
How Do I Get The Cheapest Policy After Age 50?
If you are looking for the least expensive way to get life insurance coverage over age 50, term life insurance is the type of policy to choose. Term life will have much lower premiums than other types of life insurance coverage such as whole life or universal life, which are both permanent forms of life insurance. It can also be canceled at any time without incurring any fees.
A tip to get the absolute lowest premiums is to use a shorter length of term life insurance. Many companies now offer 5-year term coverage, and 10-year level term is standard in the industry. After age 50, shorter lengths of guaranteed term tend to save a lot over longer lengths of coverage.
Why Have Life Insurance After 50?
There are a number of reasons why people may need life insurance after age 50 today. One of the biggest reasons is to protect the retirement of their spouses in the case of an early death. If an 
income-earning member of a family passes away before they retire, the lost income may need to be replaced by life insurance coverage to protect the surviving spouse and family members.
This is even more necessary today for people 50 and older because full retirement has been delayed for many people. The delay in retirement age can be traced to a number of causes including the rising costs of living, the financial crisis of 2008, and even the improved health and longevity of the workforce. The bottom line is that people are less prepared for retirement at age 50 than they used to be, and they may need life insurance to protect the retirement of their spouse if they were to die.
If you do not have enough assets accumulated to retire, and you are an income-earning member of your family, chances are that you need some life insurance coverage if your spouse is to maintain your current standard of living during retirement if you were to die.
Families Start Later
Another reason that people may need life insurance after age 50 is that the life cycle of the family is now longer and later. People are having children later in life, and children today often depend upon their parents well past college. Family members depend upon the income earned from the family breadwinner for a much longer time, and life insurance is needed to protect that income in the case of death.
Legacy and Estate Purposes
A big reason that people need whole life insurance is to pay the estate taxes for their heirs when they die. This is only for people with large estates, that will be subject to the tax. The only type of insurance suitable for this is whole life insurance because it is guaranteed to be in force no matter how long the insured person lives.
Another less common way people use life insurance is simply to leave a legacy for their family when they die. They may set up a trust fund or otherwise provide a financial windfall for their heirs. Typically this is done if the person is leaving in excess of their gift exemption, which is currently over 5 million dollars but is always subject to change according to political whims.
Term Or Whole Life?
Many people are looking for the least expensive life insurance available at any age. Many people also do not need life insurance to be in-force for their entire lives, if they live to be elderly. If this is the case for you, term life insurance is the best solution. Term insurance is the least expensive kind of life insurance to own on a yearly basis by far. Coverage can be for a short time, and there are many lengths of coverage to choose from to fit your exact need. Many people want the coverage to last until they retire (usually about age 60) at which point their earning powers have effectively ended and their spouses are fully capable of retiring comfortably.
If you need the coverage to be permanent, no matter how long you live, whole life is the best solution. This will be more expensive in the early years than term life insurance is, but with dividends, the policy may actually make you money over time or at least become significantly cheaper with time if you choose for your dividends to pay against premiums.
Consider why you are purchasing the insurance. Some people buy permanent forms of life insurance such as whole life because they want to provide a legacy, or at least make life comfortable for their kids and/or grandchildren. If this sounds like your goal, you should pursue a permanent form of coverage. You can learn more about term compared to whole life here.
How Can Life Ant Help?
Life Ant is here to help you find the right policy for your needs. We specialize in finding you the least expensive policy that will provide the coverage you require after age 50, and at any age. To get started finding your policy, please enter your zip code above in our quote comparison tool.
