Pros Explained

• Online term quotes and affordable pricing: Allstate allows you to get term insurance quotes online and offers affordable rates through its partners for term coverage.
• Terms up to 40 years: While many providers offer a maximum term of 30 years, Allstate can find you a policy that lasts up to 40 years.
• Offers coverage through strong insurers: Allstate partners with Protective, John Hancock, and Lincoln Financial to offer individual life insurance policies. Each of these companies has an A+ (Superior) financial strength rating from AM Best and received fewer complaints than expected over the past three years.

Cons Explained

• Does not underwrite life insurance policies: Allstate offers individual life insurance through other providers. So if you'd like your insurance coverages all under one roof, you won't get that with Allstate.
• Must input personal information to get a quote: Many companies that offer online quotes don't require that you enter your full name and mailing address to get a quote. But Allstate does, making this a more invasive process than what you'll find elsewhere.

Complaint Index

Allstate had somewhat more consumer complaints than expected from 2019–2021, given the company’s size, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). Each year, the NAIC calculates a complaint index for every life insurance provider that indicates if a company received more or fewer complaints than expected.

An index of 1.00 indicates an expected number of complaints, while an index higher than 1.00 indicates more complaints than expected. Averaged over the last three years, the complaint index for Allstate is 2.39, which means the company received more complaints than expected.

But since Allstate no longer underwrites individual life insurance policies, it’s important to check the complaint index for each company Allstate partners with to offer life insurance. John Hancock, Protective and Lincoln Financial each have average complaint indexes of less than 1.00 from 2019–2021, but John Hancock's average rating during that time period is 1.72.

Third-Party Ratings

AM Best, an independent credit ratings agency, grades insurance companies based on the likelihood that they can honor their ongoing insurance obligations. Because AM Best grades are important indicators of a company’s financial outlook, we don’t typically recommend any insurers that score below the A bracket.

While Allstate received an A+ (Superior) financial strength rating from AM Best, it’s more important to consider the grades received by each of the companies that partner with Allstate to offer life insurance. Protective, John Hancock, and Lincoln Financial all received A+ (Superior) ratings from AM Best, suggesting that each of these companies is able to pay claims and honor its contractual insurance obligations.

Policies Available

Term Life Insurance

Term life insurance provides a death benefit if the policyholder dies within a specific term, typically corresponding with a period of financial obligations. For example, you might purchase 30 years of coverage while you’re paying off your mortgage. You may have the option to renew the policy after the term period expires at a higher rate. Allstate offers affordable rates for term life insurance, along with terms of up to 40 years. Allstate’s partners’ policies are also convertible to a permanent policy. 

Universal Life Insurance

Universal life (UL) insurance is a type of permanent policy that builds cash value over time, which you can borrow against or withdraw from if you need to. With a universal life insurance policy, you have the flexibility to increase or decrease your premium, within limits, and may be able to increase or decrease coverage if your needs change.

Indexed Universal Life Insurance

An indexed universal life (IUL) insurance policy is similar to a regular UL policy, except that the cash value grows according to the performance of a stock market index, such as the S&P 500. The cash value is not directly invested in the index and won’t lose value due to negative index returns. Similarly, gains are capped as well. This type of policy lets you participate in market gains, to a limited extent, while still protecting from market losses.

Whole Life Insurance

Whole life insurance is a type of permanent life insurance that builds cash value with level premiums for the life of the policy. It’s significantly more expensive than a term life policy and may be more expensive than a UL policy in the early years, but it guarantees the death benefit for life as long as premiums are paid.

Variable Universal Life Insurance

Variable universal life (VUL) insurance is a UL policy that allows you to invest the cash value component directly in the stock market via subaccounts, which are like mutual funds for VUL policies. Unlike an IUL policy, you have direct market exposure. There are no caps on gains and no caps on losses, which makes VUL policies the riskiest type to own.

Available Riders

Riders are endorsements that add coverage to your policy to meet various needs. Since Allstate no longer underwrites its own policies, available riders will vary depending on the provider Allstate connects you with. Below are some of the riders available to you.

Child Term Rider

This adds term coverage for your dependent children. Most child term riders cover every dependent child under a certain age, and many offer the option to convert the term coverage to a permanent policy once they become an adult.

Waiver of Premium Rider

This allows you to pause your premium payments in certain circumstances. For example, a waiver of premium rider for disability allows you to stop paying your premiums if you become totally disabled. There is typically a waiting period before you can pause your payments.

Accidental Death Benefit Rider

This rider provides an additional benefit if the insured dies as the result of an accident.

Terminal Illness Rider

This accelerated benefit rider provides access to part of the death benefit while the insured is still living should they be diagnosed with a terminal illness resulting in death within 12 to 24 months.

Chronic Illness Rider

With this rider, the insured can access a portion of the death benefit ahead of their death should they be diagnosed with a chronic illness that influences their ability to perform at least two activities of daily living.

Customer Service

Allstate offers 24/7 customer support through their general support line, which you can reach by dialing 1-800-ALLSTATE. For life insurance-specific inquiries, you can or use one of the following phone numbers:

• Payments: 1-800-525-9287
• Claims: 1-800-366-3495
• General Life Inquiries: 1-800-366-1411
• Universal and Whole Life Quotes: 1-800-497-7970
• New York: 1-800-268-5619

You can log in to your account to complete most transactions online, including making a payment and filing a claim. There’s a live chat available for policyholders to use. You can also use this to send a message to Allstate at any time.

Our Methodology: How We Review Life Insurance Carriers

We designed a comprehensive ranking methodology based on consumer priorities and life insurance company fundamentals to rank more than 90 insurers across five general categories: financial stability, customer satisfaction, product and feature variety, the overall buying experience, and cost. In order to do this, we collected over 5,000 data points and scored each company based on 55 metrics. We grouped metrics by category to see how insurers performed in each; we then weighted category scores to determine how companies performed overall.

To learn more, read our full Life Insurance Methodology.