Term Insurance Rates

Anon in the comments asked to see rates for Term 10 and Term 20 policies.

150 quotes later here are some tables for term rates as of July 8, 2009. All the rates are based on standard health, non-smoker. If you are a smoker you can effectively double the rates. If you are in better than average health see the section on preferred rates below.

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Notice the two yellow highlighted cells, in these two cases it is actually cheaper to get insurance at an older age, wacky!

All of the rates were taken from actual Life Guide quotes. In most cases I have taken the best rate possible, however, occasionally the best rate was not a company I am contracted with or comfortable doing business with, such as AIG (now BMO insurance), in these cases I used the best rate I can get. The shown rates were never more than a few dollars off the best rate available. Rates were from a number of different reputable companies, including but not limited to Axa, Great West Life, IAP, Manulife, RBC, Transamerica, etc.

I started with 10 year age bands for the younger ages and moved to 5 year bands starting at age 55. As you can see rates start to climb exponentially after age 55 so I felt it would be prudent to provide more data points in the older years.
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Preferred Rates

If you are in better than average health you can qualify for Preferred Rates. Preferred rates give you a discounted premium because you pose less of a risk if you are in good health. There are two levels of preferred rates, Preferred and Super Preferred. Different companies might use different names such as Elite or Healthclass 1 but it all means the same thing, cheaper premium. Getting a preferred rate is based mostly on your medical history and Body Mass Index (BMI) if you fall into a build table and have no personal history of medical problems you can probably get preferred. Getting Super Preferred is a lot harder, as the underwriters start looking at not only your medical history buy the medical history of your immediate family (Father, Mother, Brothers and Sisters). If any of your immediate family have been diagnosed with Cancer, Heart Attack, Stroke or other hereditary conditions before age 65 you can't get Super Preferred rates even if you are incredibly fit.

Preferred rates will save on average 15% over standard rates.
Super Preferred rate will save on average 30% over standard rates.

A common "trick" of the less professional insurance agent is to quote Super Preferred rates all the time. When a client is shopping around for the best rate this makes them choose the unscrupulous agent, the agent has no idea if the client will get a preferred rate and has no control over the decision. Often once underwriting is done the client will get approved at standard rates which are 30% higher than their original quote. Most clients will simply accept the higher rate rather than go through the application process all over again to secure a slightly better standard rate with another agent. Preferred Rates are a sneaky way to show clients lower rates, I personally never use Preferred Rates when quoting, I always use Standard Rates, and let my clients know they might qualify for a better rate if they are in good health.

Robert Reynolds - GBA
Partner / Group Accounts Manager
HMR Employee Benefits Ltd.

Disclosure: The content of this post are provided as general information only and should not be taken as financial advice. I am a licensed life accident and sickness advisor, I am paid partly by salary for servicing my block of business and by commissions on new sales of insurance and financial products. I do not own any interest in any insurance company nor do any insurance company’s own any portion of my business. The opinions expressed are my own, and do not represent the opinions of HMR Employee Benefits Ltd.