Home › Carriers › Protective Life

Not affiliated with Protective Life. Life Policy Desk is an independent marketing service. We are not Protective Life and not an insurance company. To reach Protective Life directly, use the phone number on your policy documents.

Protective Life Insurance Policy Help

Term policies near their end, conversion questions, billing, beneficiaries and universal life statements

Protective Life sells term and universal life insurance, largely through independent agents and brokers. Term life is coverage bought for a fixed span of years, usually at a premium that stays level the whole way through, and then ends or changes once that stretch is over. Many of the people who look for help own a term policy that is getting close to that point and have a letter in hand they are not sure how to read. Others have simpler problems: a draft that bounced, a beneficiary who needs updating, or an agent who sold the policy years ago and can no longer be reached.

Common reasons people call about a Protective Life policy

• The level period is winding down. A notice says the fixed premium is about to end. Owners want to know whether the coverage stops, carries on at a higher yearly cost, or offers some other choice, and what happens if they simply do nothing.
• A bill that suddenly jumped. If a term policy keeps going after its level period, the premium can climb steeply and keep climbing each year. A bill that looks nothing like last year's is one of the most common reasons to ask for a second look.
• Whether the policy can be converted. Some term contracts allow part or all of the coverage to be switched to permanent insurance with no fresh health questions. The contract spells out whether that right exists and how it works.
• The selling agent has moved on. Because these policies usually come through independent agents and brokers, the person who arranged the coverage may have retired or changed firms. The policy stays with the insurer either way, and any licensed agent can help you read it.
• Changing who is named. A marriage, a divorce or a death in the family usually prompts this. The insurer pays whoever is recorded on its own file, so a will or a spoken wish does not change the designation.
• A payment that stopped. A new bank account or an expired card can halt an automatic draft without anyone noticing. Callers want to know whether the coverage is still active and what has to be paid to keep it that way.
• A universal life statement that is hard to follow. Universal life is permanent coverage with a cash value that moves with the premiums paid, the interest credited and the charges taken out. When the charges outrun what goes in, the statement starts to show it.

What to have ready before you call

• The full legal name of the person whose life is insured
• Roughly when the coverage started, even a best guess
• Any letter about the term ending, plus the latest bill or annual statement
• Who is listed as beneficiary, if anyone knows
• A short note of what prompted the call, so nothing slips your mind

A missing item is no reason to wait. One envelope and a rough sense of when the coverage began is plenty for a first conversation. Nobody will ask for your birth date, your policy number or your Social Security number. If the insurer has to verify your identity, it does so separately, through its own process.

Before you cancel or replace anything

Near the end of a term, letting the old policy go and buying a fresh one can look like the obvious move. Sometimes it is. Often it turns out harder than expected, because any new coverage is priced on the age you have reached and the health you have now. If either has changed since the first application, a replacement may cost far more or be declined.

A new policy also usually opens a new contestability period, the early window in which an insurer can revisit the application if a claim is filed. Coverage held for many years is normally well past that window. And if your current term policy carries a conversion option, giving it up also gives up that option, which may be the one way to stay covered with no new medical underwriting.

Letting term coverage lapse is sometimes the right call, for example when the mortgage it protected is paid off and nobody depends on your income any more. Universal life owners may have choices short of cancelling, such as adjusting the premium or the amount of coverage, and each has trade-offs written into the contract. Before you stop paying anything old or sign anything new, ask the licensed independent agent to set out what you would give up, and whether leaving the policy alone is the better answer.

Questions people ask