Many millennials and Gen Zers believe in the common myth that young people don’t need life insurance.
It’s true that many young people can get by without coverage right now and that some folks never accumulate the sorts of obligations best addressed by life insurance. But for most of us, our 20s and 30s are the ideal time to load up on life insurance. But it pays to pick the right company.
All the providers on this list offer term life insurance policies. A few offer permanent life insurance, such as whole life policies. Permanent life insurance is more expensive (even for millennials) but may build cash value and provide coverage well into old age if you keep paying your premiums.
The Best Life Insurance Companies for Millennials
These are the best life insurance companies for millennials right now. Each does at least one thing really well, whether it’s keeping premiums super-affordable or offering high coverage amounts for affluent young people.
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Our top overall pick, Haven Life, does well on several counts, and we believe it offers the best value for the most readers.
1. Best Overall: Haven Life
Haven Life is the best life insurance company for millennials because it excels on several fronts: term life options that don’t require a medical exam, overall speedy underwriting, affordability, and fantastic value-added perks.
Haven Life’s highlights for millennials include:
- Up to $3 million in term life coverage with full medical underwriting
- Up to $1 million in coverage without a medical exam, subject to health history and lifestyle
- Terms ranging from 10 to 30 years
- All-digital application that takes about 10 minutes
- Transparent pricing — Haven shows premiums paid by actual anonymous customers
Plus, Haven Life has one of the best riders of any life insurance provider. Known as Haven Life Plus, its lineup of free or discounted perks is perfect for millennials.
- Aaaptiv, a fitness app with a comprehensive workout and music library
- Timeshifter, a jet lag-fighting app that helps you recover faster from international travel
- Tools to create and securely store a customized, legally binding will online
- LifeSite, a digital vault for online document storage
- Discounted services at thousands of CVS MinuteClinic locations
Check the fine print on Haven’s website to confirm that you qualify for Haven Life Plus and that it’s available in your state.
2. Best for Multiple Quotes: Quotacy
Quotacy is the best way for millennials to get lots of life insurance quotes fast.
That’s because it’s an online insurance broker that exclusively offers life insurance quotes. This laser focus helps Quotacy find life insurance deals other brokers miss and allows it to offer perks the competition can’t match.
A key Quotacy benefit is the option to apply for term life policies as long as 40 years — longer than the usual maximum 30-year term. Quotacy offers impressively low premiums on larger policies too.
Additional features:
- Choose from multiple insurers and policy types that suit your needs
- Apply for life insurance policies from multiple insurers
- Get your quote in just five minutes
- Talk to a human agent if you need help
3. Best for Active Millennials: Sproutt
Sproutt is also a life insurance broker, but its focus is a bit narrower. It’s built to serve millennials that live active, healthy lifestyles and don’t want to deal with time-consuming medical underwriting.
The secret lies in its proprietary Quality of Life Index (QL Index), which Sproutt uses to assess your risk using nontraditional factors like:
- Your exercise habits, including type and frequency of exercise
- Your sleep habits and quality
- Your work-life balance
- Your emotional health
- Your nutrition and eating habits
The QL Index doesn’t completely overrule your family or personal health history, but it can counterbalance potential negatives lurking in those data. If you live a healthy lifestyle despite these potential negatives, it could help you secure a more affordable life insurance policy with higher coverage than you’d have found otherwise.
Additional features:
- Sprout offers no-exam life insurance and fully medically underwritten life insurance for millennials
- Get your quote within minutes
- Apply directly with the insurer with help from a Sproutt agent
4. Best for No Medical Exam: Ladder
Ladder offers no-medical-exam policies with unusually high death benefits — up to $3 million, which is more than virtually all its competitors. It’s super-easy to apply for a Ladder policy, and well-qualified applicants often receive same-day approval decisions.
Additional features:
- Low-overhead model keeps premiums down
- Provisional approval comes within minutes
- No-exam coverage requires no in-person or phone conversations
- Coverage of over $3 million with an in-home medical exam
- Option to scale down coverage without reapplying if your needs decrease
5. Best for Whole Life Insurance: State Farm
State Farm is one of the few millennial-friendly life insurance companies to offer whole life insurance, a type of permanent coverage that builds cash value over time.
If you’re looking to build a store of value for your family over many years — something you can borrow against other than your home — then whole life insurance makes sense for you.
State Farm’s agency-driven model puts a slew of other types of life insurance at your fingertips too. You can find affordable term life coverage as well as universal life coverage, another type of permanent life insurance.
Additional features:
- Niche products available, including final expenses insurance
- Optional return of premium coverage eventually repays all premiums paid if you outlive the policy’s initial term
- Rapid underwriting with Instant Answer term insurance, a $50,000 policy that provides coverage up to age 50 or for 10 years, whichever is longer
6. Best for Low Premiums: Lemonade
Lemonade is the most affordable life insurance company on this list. That’s saying something, given the sheer number of low-overhead, high-tech insurers competing for that title.
Lemonade’s process is optimized for low cost and convenience:
- Entirely online
- Led by a smart chatbot that asks health and lifestyle questions
- Automated health records review
- No medical exam required
Premiums start at just $9 per month, though many Lemonade policyholders pay more. Your actual premiums depend on your age, health history, coverage amount, and other factors.
Additional features:
- Policy terms range from 10 to 30 years
- Coverage amounts up to $1.5 million
- Other types of insurance too, including homeowners, renters, auto, and pet
7. Best for Families & Higher Earners: Fabric
If you have high coverage needs or expect to in the near future, Fabric is the best choice for you — no matter how old you are right now.
With Fabric, you can get term life insurance coverage up to $5 million. Higher coverage amounts require a medical exam, but that’s a relatively small price to pay to replace a lifetime of income.
Additional features:
- All-digital application process
- Monthly rates starting at about $14 per month
- Optional accidental death coverage up to $500,000
- Will-making services help with DIY estate planning
- Secure online vault for financial and personal documents
8. Best for Fast Approval: Bestow
Bestow’s application process is second to none. The typical applicant can expect to apply in about five minutes and receive a decision not long after that.
If you’re pressed for time and want to be done with the life insurance application process as quickly as possible, Bestow is for you.
Like its tech-driven competitors, Bestow’s underwriting process is fully algorithmic. It offers death benefits as high as $1.5 million with no medical exam required.
Additional features:
- Get a provisional quote within seconds
- Terms as long as 30 years in five-year increments
- Rates as low as $10 per month on $50,000 in coverage
9. Best for Value-Adds: Walnut
Walnut is another tech-driven insurer that offers life insurance coverage starting at $10 per month.
If all you need is term life coverage, simply choose a 10-year or 20-year term and select a coverage amount up to $1 million. Walnut offers price-first coverage, so you always know exactly what your premium will be before you check out.
But it also has plenty of lifestyle perks to go along with your life insurance coverage. You can opt into a value-added benefits package that includes:
- Headspace Plus, a guided meditation and therapy library
- ClassPass Digital, a digital fitness class library
- Dashlane Premium, a password manager that ensures you’ll never have to enter a password again
Purchased separately, these benefits cost more than $25 per month, but they’re available for a fraction of the cost with Walnut.
Additional features:
- As little as $50,000 in term life coverage
- Apply for an optional cyber insurance product to protect your identity and data
- An accelerated death benefit rider at no additional cost to make a portion of your death benefit available in life if you’re diagnosed with a terminal illness
Methodology: How We Select the Best Life Insurance Companies for Millennials
We use several important factors to assess the best life insurance companies for millennials and young people. Each relates in some way to the cost or overall utility of the policies reviewed here.
Cost
No one wants to spend more on life insurance than they think they should. Fortunately, young people generally pay lower monthly premiums for life insurance because their risk of death is lower.
Still, premiums for equal amounts of coverage vary from company to company. We’re fans of life insurance providers that keep premiums as low as possible without compromising their financial strength.
Coverage Amount
Your life insurance needs are different from your neighbor’s. One of you might be looking to cover your funeral expenses and burial costs and not much else, while the other might aim to replace their entire expected lifetime income — probably a seven-figure sum.
That being the case, we’re big on life insurance companies whose coverage amounts span a wide range — from $100,000 or less to $3 million or more.
Policy Type
Most of the companies on this list focus on term life insurance because it’s so affordable. That’s the best choice for most millennials. But we give bonus points to companies that offer permanent life coverage options too.
Policy Term Length
Since most millennials choose term life policies, term length is important. The typical maximum term length is 30 years, and many younger applicants use multiple policies to build life insurance ladders that step down coverage over time. Like this:
- 10-year term policy with $1 million in coverage
- 20-year term policy with $500,000 in coverage
- 30-year term policy with $500,000 in coverage
In the first 10 years, you have $2 million in coverage. In the 11th through 20th years, you have $1 million in coverage. And in the 21st through 30th years, you have $500,000 in coverage.
All else being equal, we prefer companies with wide enough policy term ranges to support this strategy.
Medical Exam Requirements
Millennials and Gen Zers tend to be healthier than older generations, mostly because they’re younger. But many still don’t want to go through the stress of full medical underwriting — meaning a medical exam, blood or urine draw, and invasive medical questions.
That’s why we’re fans of life insurers that make it easy to get life insurance without a medical exam.
Underwriting Process
Traditional life insurance underwriting has lots of twists and turns, most of which happen behind the scenes.
That’s why we look for life insurance companies that are as transparent as possible about how they evaluate applicants. We give special consideration to companies that offer:
- Discounts for healthy lifestyles
- Considerations for people with preexisting conditions, such as diabetes and mental health issues
- Rapid approval decisions for well-qualified applicants
- Clear guidance on application status
Life Insurance Companies for Millennials FAQS
Life insurance is a complicated topic. It’s natural to have questions about how it works, what to expect when you apply for a policy, and how you can be sure your beneficiaries get your policy’s death benefit if you die during the term.
These are some of the most common questions that come up for millennials shopping for life insurance.
Why Should Millennials Buy Life Insurance?
Even if you don’t have a family or mortgage right now, there’s a good chance you’ll have those things or other expenses and obligations that could outlive you in the future.
If and when that day comes, your family will be relieved you had life insurance. And you’ll be happy you got life insurance at a relatively young age, when your premiums are likely to be lower. The longer you wait to get coverage, the more you pay for the same amount.
How Much Life Insurance Do Millennials Need?
To determine how much life insurance you need, consider your known or expected future expenses and income.
You can use one of two methods to estimate your coverage amount.
The first gives you just enough coverage to offset your future expenses and not much more. These expenses might include:
- Your mortgage payments
- Your private student loan payments
- Additional child care costs your partner or other caregiver might incur if you die
- Your kids’ expected education costs
- Other debts or obligations you have or might have in the future
The second method aims to replace your expected lifetime earnings so your family can maintain its standard of living. That usually results in a higher coverage amount because you’re likely to earn more than your future expenses during your working life.
In either case, your calculation should account for inflation.
How Much Does Life Insurance Cost for Millennials?
Your life insurance cost depends on several factors:
- The type of policy you choose — a term life policy is much cheaper than the same amount of whole life insurance coverage
- Your chosen coverage amount
- Your age — a 25-year-old pays less for life insurance than a 30-year-old or 35-year-old, all else being equal
- Your personal health history
- Your family health history
- Your occupation and lifestyle, including unhealthy habits like smoking
Since age is a really important factor, millennials generally pay less for life insurance than older folks. That’s why it pays to get life insurance early, even before you think you need it.
What Type of Life Insurance Should Millennials Buy?
Term life insurance is a good choice for most millennials because it’s affordable, easy to get, and often available in high coverage amounts.
That said, whole life insurance is useful if you want a product that lasts indefinitely and builds cash value you can borrow against or use to pay your premiums.
Don’t worry about getting final expenses life insurance this early in the game. This small-dollar whole life insurance policy is appropriate for older folks with limited savings, not so much for millennials. A term life policy should cover your funeral and burial costs with plenty left over.
How to Choose the Best Life Insurance Company as a Millennial
The most important thing you need to know is that it’s better not to wait, even if you’re expecting major life changes still to come. The younger you are, the less it costs for the same amount of life insurance coverage.
Of course, it’s important to choose the best life insurance company for your needs. As you evaluate your options, consider:
- How much life insurance you need
- Which type of life insurance you prefer — term or permanent (or both)
- How much you can afford to pay each month
- Whether you’re OK with full medical underwriting or prefer a no-exam policy
- How long you need coverage
With these considerations in mind and any others you or your financial planner believe are important to you, examine each of the companies on this list. Chances are you’ll find one that stands out.