If you’re searching for a simple way to buy term life insurance online, Ladder is an option you may discover. But there’s a big reason why you may want to choose another company.
As part of the research for this piece, we shopped Ladder for a variety of term life policies for customers of different ages. You can go straight to the quotes or read about the full life insurance shopping experience.
Here’s What You Need To Know About Ladder
Wondering why the name Ladder? The company touts its ability to let customers decrease (or apply to increase) their coverage online as needs change. It is this “laddering” capability that gives the company its name.
“So, for instance, if your child graduates from college or you pay off your mortgage,” Ladder notes online, “you can eliminate the amount of your coverage that was intended to provide for those things and subsequently lower your monthly price.”
The company claims customers can save “thousands of dollars” over the years by adjusting their coverage like this as life dictates.
Now let’s take a deeper look at all that Ladder offers.
Table of Contents
- What Ladder Offers
- No Medical Exam Policies
- A.M. Best Rating
- Getting a Quote Online
- Term Life Calculator
What Ladder Offers
Ladder offers only one kind of policy — term life insurance — which just happens to be money expert Clark Howard’s favorite kind of life insurance.
Depending on your age, you can choose from these policy lengths between 10 and 30 years (in five-year increments). Coverage amounts start at $100,000 and go as high as $8 million.
According to Ladder, any U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident who has been in the country for more than two years — and is between the ages of 20 and 60 — can apply for a term life policy.
But once you hit 40, your age limits the length of the term you can buy.
| Age | Maximum Term Length You’re Eligible to Purchase |
| 40 | 30-year term |
| 45 | 25-year term |
| 50 | 20-year term |
| 55 | 15-year term |
| 60 | 10-year term |
May Qualify For No Medical Exam
Like a lot of insure-tech companies, Ladder offers a term life insurance policy with no medical exam requirement. Ladder guarantees no medical exams for coverage up to $3 million, just some health-related questions that need to be answered as part of the online application.
That means you don’t have to submit blood or urine tests because Ladder uses third-party data sources, such as listings of your prescription-drug history, to assess your risk level.
Of course, not everyone will qualify, but Ladder says it’s trying to minimize the number of people who require a medical exam to apply.
“We are 100% digital — no doctors, no needles, no paperwork — when you apply for $3 million in coverage or less. Anything greater and we may ask you to complete a quick, free, at-home health check,” the company notes online.
If you’re applying for more than $3 million in coverage and do need a lab tech visit, you can schedule it at your home or office and it should take less than 30 minutes, according to the company. During that time, the tech will:
- Review your basic medical history
- Record basic measurements (height and weight)
- Measure vital signs (i.e. blood pressure and pulse)
- Take urine and blood samples
A.M. Best Rating
All policies sold through Ladder are issued by one of two different insurance companies:
- Allianz Life Insurance Company of New York issues policies in New York
- Fidelity Security Life Insurance issues in all other states and Washington D.C.
As of November 2022, Fidelity Security Life Insurance has an A rating by A.M. Best Company, an independent analyst of the insurance industry. Allianz Life Insurance Company of New York has been rated A+ by A.M. Best.
A.M. Best is the leading credit rating body for the insurance industry. Clark has long trusted them for their assessments of insurers’ financial strength.
But Clark also has a rule: Buy life insurance only from companies that are rated A++ and A+, which are the two highest marks.
Anything less than an A+ — even an A — isn’t acceptable in Clark’s book because he says you can’t be certain the company will be around to pay claims down the road.
By sticking with companies that have A.M. Best credit ratings of A++ and A+, you’re going with one of the best indicators we have that an insurance company will be around for the long haul.
Unfortunately, Ladder does not meet Team Clark’s criteria at this time.
Getting a Quote Online
If you still want to move forward, you can shop with Ladder online. To get a quote, you simply need to enter some preliminary information:
- Gender
- Height
- Weight
- Tobacco use
- Family medical history
- Annual household income
- Remaining mortgage balance
The whole process takes just two or three minutes, and then you get an immediate quote online. There’s also live support available if you need it during the shopping process.
We looked up quotes for people making $100,000 of income with $100,000 left on their mortgage, zero children, no tobacco use and seeking coverage for 20 years with a $500,000 benefit.
Here’s how Ladder priced those options for 45- and 55-year-old males and females in August 2022.
| Age | Male | Female |
|---|---|---|
| 45 | $59.92 | $47.45 |
| 55 | $104.03 | $70.57 |
Of course, your quote will vary based on your age, health and other circumstances.
Term Life Calculator
If you’re confused by how much life insurance you need for your individual situation, Ladder has an online calculator to help you decide.
Just enter the following information, and Ladder will determine how much life insurance you need:
- Your remaining mortgage balance
- Any other debts you have
- How many children you have and their ages
- Projected college tuition costs, if applicable
- How much you want your beneficiaries to get annually and for how long
- Any additional coverage you may want
- Value of existing life insurance policies, if any
- How much you have in savings
Clark has his own rule of thumb about how much life insurance you need. He’s long recommended purchasing an amount equal to 10 times your gross annual salary.
So if you make $40,000 annually, you’d likely want to purchase $400,000 of life insurance to replace your income for your beneficiaries should you die during your prime earning years.
Final Thought
When it comes to life insurance, Clark always recommends keeping it simple — and simple means term life insurance, because the premium never goes up.
Term life insurance does one job and one job only: It offers a lump sum benefit that could be used as an income replacement for your survivors in the event of your death.
At this time, Ladder does not meet one of our biggest requirements when shopping for term life insurance: an A++ or A+ A.M. Best rating so we recommend selecting another company. Before making any purchase decisions, you’ll most likely want to review the best term life insurance companies.
Ladder Insurance Services, LLC (CA license # OK22568; AR license # 3000140372) distributes term life insurance products issued by multiple insurers – for further details see ladderlife.com. All insurance products are governed by the terms set forth in the applicable insurance policy. Each insurer has financial responsibility for its own products.
