Pacific Life Insurance Review 2020

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 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.

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’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.

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.

Every company prices their life insurance policies a little differently, so we sampled rates with Pacific, including those in the following tables.

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.

Pacific Life Insurance Company’s standout feature is the sheer number of choices.

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.

Pacific Life Insurance Company has been around for over 150 years and has the financial stability ratings to back up that experience.

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.

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.

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.

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).