5 Best and Worst Sites to Compare Life Insurance Quotes

A life insurance policy can act as a financial safety net for your loved ones if you unexpectedly pass away. Life insurance quotes vary greatly depending on the companies you consider.

Comparing quotes you gathered directly from each insurance company website is like comparing apples to oranges because you can’t easily account for coverage options, death benefits, payouts, and pricing. By using a comparison site, you can see all your quotes in one place to find the right life insurance policy at the best rate.

Here’s what you need to know about comparison shopping for life insurance — including which comparison tools to use and which to avoid.

How life insurance comparison sites work

Life insurance comparison sites provide rate quotes based on the personal information you enter. If you decide to move forward with purchasing a policy, the comparison site will transfer you to the specific company website or an insurance agent to complete the purchase.

Since you’ll need to submit your personal details only once to get multiple quotes in one place, life insurance comparison sites can save you a great deal of time and hassle, like an independent insurance broker. These comparison sites eliminate the need to request quotes for a variety of life insurance options from each life insurance company.

The best and worst life insurance comparison sites

Here’s a brief overview of the best and worst life insurance comparison sites you may come across as you shop for life insurance. The reviews average column reflects the average overall ratings the comparison sites received from customers on Trustpilot, the Better Business Bureau, and Shopper Approved.

Insurify

Founded in 2016 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Insurify is an online insurance marketplace. It’s a free service that offers real-time, accurate quotes from the top insurance companies in the U.S. To date, Insurify has delivered more than 100 million quotes that have led to a combined $44 million in savings for its users.

How it works

Insurify is an insurance-comparison site that lets you compare term life insurance quotes in five minutes or less. You don’t need to submit a medical exam to compare quotes through Insurify. You can purchase a policy online or schedule a consultation with an agent. Insurify is completely free to use and available in all 50 states.

The results

The short form required to find term insurance quotes through Insurify asks a series of questions about gender, age, smoking habits, and health status. You’ll also have to provide your preferred coverage amount and term.

Insurify produced seven results, all based on the coverage parameters of a 20-year life insurance term with a $500,000 coverage amount. Insurify clearly labeled the several ads it showed us with “Ad.” Overall, the application process is quick and easy.

NerdWallet

NerdWallet made its debut in 2009 as a credit card comparison platform and source for personal finance tips. Today, it has an editorial team and offers a number of financial products, including insurance, personal loans, mortgages, student loans, and more. It also features expert advice, educational articles, and tools with educational purposes to help you make financial decisions.

How it works

NerdWallet has a life insurance comparison tool that can match you to insurers, such as Haven Life, Ladder, Guardian, Bestow, and Sproutt. Note that you won’t find the tool on the home page and will have to either search for it in Google or dig through the site to stumble upon it. Once you get there, you can click “Get Started” to begin the process.

The results

Clicking on the “Get Started” button to request life insurance quotes from NerdWallet didn’t produce any real-time quotes for us. Instead, NerdWallet showed us information about three of its life insurance partners: Ethos, Ladder, and Fabric by Gerber Life.

After selecting “Get a Quote,” NerdWallet directed us to each insurer’s site to submit the needed information again. Overall, this tool was unhelpful because we didn’t receive accurate quotes and had to complete a form on each life insurance company’s website.

Policygenius

Two management consultants at McKinsey & Company founded Policygenius in 2014 with a goal to “modernize the insurance shopping experience.” Today, the site offers insurance quotes for life insurance, car insurance, home insurance, and disability insurance. To date, Policygenius has served more than 30 million shoppers and sold over $90 billion in policies.

How it works

Policygenius is a quote-comparison site, but it doesn’t allow you to purchase a life insurance policy without speaking to someone first. Once you complete the lengthy form and create an account, you’ll receive quotes but no opportunity to apply for a policy online. Policygenius’ privacy policy page states it will never sell your information to third parties, but that doesn’t mean you won’t receive phone calls and emails once you share your details.

The results

First, Policygenius asks basic questions about gender, date of birth, ZIP code, household size, and income. Then, you have to select details about your health and smoking status. The company will then have you select your coverage goals from a list that includes things like “prevent others from inheriting my debts,” “build long-term cash value,” and “cover final expenses.”

To actually receive personalized life insurance quotes, you have to create a Policygenius account and provide additional information about your health, financial situation, and travel history. After going through the process, we received 12 quotes ranging in price from $16.66 per month to $30.69 per month for a 20-year, $500,000 policy.

Once you select a policy you’re interested in, Policygenius lets you know someone will call you shortly to confirm your information and help you formally apply. The entire process is fairly time-consuming and complicated, but it did produce real-time quotes rather than just ads.

SelectQuote

Headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, SelectQuote launched in 1985 to offer direct marketing of term life insurance. It now allows users to search for insurance online so they can find the most affordable option.

How it works

SelectQuote acts as an insurance sales agency that partners with insurance companies to offer users the best option for life insurance. It requires you to fill out an online form so that it can match you with insurers potentially willing to offer you a life insurance policy. If you don’t want to fill out an online form, you can call a SelectQuote licensed insurance agent instead.

The results

To start the online process, we selected the “Get a Quote” button on the SelectQuote home page. From there, you have to answer questions about your age, gender, ZIP code, and health status. You’ll also need to select whether you’re looking for term life insurance, permanent life insurance, whole life insurance, or final expense insurance.

The site only generated two results from Ethos and TruStage for a $500,000, 20-year term life policy, which were basically ads. We had to go to each insurer’s website to fill out another form. SelectQuote didn’t provide us with any real-time quotes.

QuoteWizard

Founded in 2006 and owned by LendingTree, QuoteWizard collects information from users to match them to local insurance agents who sell life insurance, auto insurance, home insurance, and renters insurance. These agents pay a fee to receive the leads that the site produces. QuoteWizard claims to have connected more than 50 million people to agents.

How it works

QuoteWizard is primarily a lead-generation site, so it doesn’t offer actual life insurance quotes. Instead, it will sell your information to its partners, who may then contact you to try to sell you a life insurance policy or other insurance products. You can think of QuoteWizard as an advertising platform for different life insurance companies that receive compensation.

The results

From the home page, you’ll need to find QuoteWizard’s dedicated life insurance page. Then, you plug in your ZIP code and select the “Get Quotes” button. Next, you have to type in your age. QuoteWizard sent us to a page with pre-qualified offers, which are essentially ads from Legal & General and USAA. The entire process was unhelpful because we had to go to each insurance company’s website to fill out a form and request a quote.

Methodology

To identify the best company for life insurance quote comparison, we considered industry ratings and online customer reviews from the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Google reviews, and Trustpilot. We also went through the quote-comparison process and questionnaire for each insurance company included in this review to assess the helpfulness of each product.

We used the same user profile when requesting life insurance quotes from the included insurers to create consistent results. We requested quotes for a 20-year term life insurance policy with a $500,000 coverage amount for a 35-year-old woman living in Ohio who doesn’t smoke.

How to compare life insurance quotes

These tips can make it easier to compare life insurance quotes and find the right life policy for your unique budget and financial needs:

1. Determine your insurance needs. It’s a good idea to ask yourself why you want a life insurance policy and what price range you’re looking for. Maybe you hope to protect your family’s finances until your children go to college. Or perhaps your goal is to cover your funeral and end-of-life expenses or find a company that will insure you despite your smoking habits or medical history.

2. Gather your information. To get accurate life insurance quotes and unbiased information, you’ll need some basic details about your demographics, health, and finances. This information may include your height, weight, any health issues you have, and your family’s medical history.

3. Request multiple quotes. You may feel tempted to select coverage from the first insurer you find, but you’re more likely to find good life insurance coverage at an affordable rate if you shop around. Compare quotes from at least three different insurers. You can use a life insurance comparison tool or a local agent to help you.

Factors used in life insurance quotes

Most life insurance companies consider these factors when determining rates for prospective policyholders:

• Age: If you’re younger, you’re more likely to land lower life insurance premiums as a result of your longer life expectancy. You may qualify for life insurance as a senior, but you should expect to pay a higher premium.

• Health: Health conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease usually lead to more expensive rates. Depending on the insurance company and policy type, you may have to complete a medical exam before receiving a quote.

• Smoking habits: The use of cigarettes, vaping, chewing tobacco, and other forms of nicotine usually results in higher life insurance costs. If you use nicotine products, you’ll likely pay more than a non-smoker.

Life insurance comparison FAQs