If you’re looking to the future, you should include life insurance in those plans. I know it can make you uncomfortable thinking about your death, but life insurance can provide a wonderful safety net for your loved ones.
Our finances are an important part of our lives.
Not only should you be concerned with your money, but you should think about your family or business partner as well.
You should protect your family’s finances as much as possible. One of the only ways you can do that is through an insurance policy.
In This Review:
History of Voya Financial Life Insurance
If you specifically look at Voya Life Insurance Company, you can read the whole history in two minutes, but that’s not the whole story.
ING acquired Security Life of Denver Insurance Company in 1977, making Denver Insurance Company at its core, and since then, it has acquired other life insurance companies:
- Reliastar Life Insurance Company (Minneapolis)
- Reliastar Life Insurance Company of New York
- Midwestern United Life Insurance Company
- Voya Retirement and Annuity Company
- Security Life of Denver Insurance Company
In April of 2014, ING officially changed their name to Voya Financial (the name is taken from the word “voyage”) and is regularly listed as one of the best life insurance companies in the market.
To get a clearer picture of the company and where they started, you have to go back to ING’s roots, which started in 1991.
ING was created as a combination of the companies, Nationale-Nederlanden, and NMB Postbank Group.
If you want to go all the way back to the very beginning of these companies which eventually led to ING, you have to search back to 1845.
ING was created in the Netherlands after restrictions on mergers between banks and insurers were overturned.
The two companies combined to make Internationale Nederlanden Groep, which quickly was shortened to ING.
While they have only been branded as Voya for a few years, they have already made a splash in the insurance market.
They were given the award of one of the “World’s Most Ethical Companies” by Ethisphere Institute.
They are also one of the top-tier providers of both life insurance and brokerage networks in the United States, making them a sound financial service provider.
Voya Insurer Ratings and BBB Grade
When you’re sifting through the sea of life insurance companies, it can be like trying to pick a needle out of a haystack in the dark.
How do you know which companies are trustworthy? Do they have reliable financial strength?
Everyone claims they are the best provider, but which ones actually are?
You don’t have to go digging through all of their financial records to figure it out.
There are specific organizations that review factors to give consumers an idea of the security and stability of these carriers.
Voya has good grades from all of these companies, though they are not accredited with the Better Business Bureau.
Commissioners for individual life insurance and financial strength companies help rate a company’s ability to pay out life insurance claims. A.M. Best Rating has given them an A rating while Moody rated them as a stable company.
Fitch rewarded them with an A- grade, and they have the same from Standard & Poors.
Life Insurance Products Sold by Voya
Now that you know their background and where they started, we can look at the types of life insurance coverage offered with the best life insurance rates available.
It’s important you understand all the options from Voya.
One thing you’ll notice if you head over to their website is they don’t sell a very popular type of insurance–term insurance.
They officially retired their Voya ROP Endowment Term and Voya Termsmart policies in 2016.
Term life insurance is the most popular form of coverage as it’s the cheapest and easiest to understand.
Voya does offer a term insurance plan, but it’s only for businesses looking to cover their employers.
If you want an individual term policy or a no medical exam life insurance policy, you better look somewhere other than Voya before spending time trying to gather life insurance quotes.
While they don’t sell term, they do sell every other kind of plan. Here are some of the types of insurance they sell:
- Universal Life
- Indexed Universal Life
- Variable Universal Life
- Survivorship Life
Life insurance rates are going to vary based on the underwriting criteria (birthdate, current, and past medical history) you meet or in some cases do not meet.
It’s always a great idea to talk to your insurance agent as they can typically guide you towards the best policy based on your health.
If you are new to life insurance, you might have no clue what any of those plans are. Don’t worry, we are going to explore each of these options.
Universal Life
Universal life insurance is a whole life insurance policy.
You don’t need to worry about finding the best length of coverage for your money, once you’ve been accepted, you have coverage until you hit the max-age.
That’s why it is also known as permanent life insurance, and you maintain coverage even if you develop a critical illness in the future.
Just like with every other kind of permanent plan, universal policies build cash value, and the money grows taxed deferred.
What’s so unique about universal life insurance is the flexibility of the plan.
Policyholders can determine how often they pay premiums and how much the death benefit or face amount the plan is.
The longer you have your policy, the more your needs are going to change. Your plan should be able to change with your life.
Voya sells two universal plans – Voya Universal Life – CV and Voya Universal Life CY NY.
Indexed Universal Life
IUL gives you the same benefits as the universal plans we detailed above, except they have more potential for growth.
The cash value inside of the policy is tied to market indexed. The better the index performs, the more growth inside of your policy.
For anyone who is looking to make some little extra investments, these IUL could be the go-to choice.
IUL plans have a minimum interest rate, which you’re guaranteed to get, but there is a chance it could go much higher.
If you want to buy an IUL plan through Voya, you have a couple of options,
- Voya Indexed Universal Life – Global Choice
- Voya Indexed Universal Life – Global Choice NY
- Voya Indexed Universal Life – Protector
- Voya Indexed Universal Life – Accumulator
Variable Universal Life
Variable universal life insurance plans give you the flexibility of being able to change your premiums and death benefit, and the ability to grow the cash value through investments.
Unlike indexed policies, the investments are restrictedly tied to indexed market performance.
You still get returns that grow tax-deferred, but you’ll have more options than you do with the indexed version.
Voya sells two variable universal plans: Voya Variable Universal Life – CV and Voya Variable Universal -Life DB.
Survivorship
Survivorship insurance is very different from a traditional plan because it actually covers TWO people, not one.
The plan doesn’t pay out until the second person named on the policy passes away, making this option popular with older married applicants who are estate planning.
They want to leave behind enough money for their loved ones to pay off taxes and fund a burial.
Because these policies technically cover two people, they are going to have more affordable premium payments.
If you want a survivorship policy, you can buy the Voya Strategic Accumulator Survivorship Universal Life –CV.
Other Products and Services from Voya Financial
Life insurance isn’t the only thing Voya offers. In fact, they have a lot of other insurance and financial products available.
Because we are focused on life insurance, we aren’t going to explore all of their other products, but you should at least be aware of them.
Having all of your insurance and financial tools in one place can be helpful in your personal finance portfolio.
In addition to life insurance, Voya also has a handful of IRA options.
They have IRAs for people who want to manage their own policies or for people who would rather an expert manage the finances.
Voya also has workplace various investment options like retirement plans, employee benefits, mutual funds, college savings plans, and a variety of financial tools and information.
Is Voya Financial Life Insurance Best for You?
It’s important to have a full view of the entire company when reviewing an insurance carrier.
Because every person and family has different insurance needs, we can’t say if they are the best for you, but we can give some preferred applicants for Voya.
One niche they have carved out for themselves is the applicant with a family history of cancer seeking life insurance.
Voya doesn’t ask about any family history of cancer, which is extremely rare compared to the other companies out there.
Voya is also an excellent option for individuals struggling with high blood pressure.
Even applicants who have higher blood pressure can still get their lowest premiums.
If you’re overweight, Voya can be a great choice. Their build chart is much more lenient than other carriers out there.
They have a higher range of weight for each height range, meaning their weight chart could save you money every month.
Voya is a good option for niche applicants searching who may have considerable health hurdles, but are not great for younger, healthier applicants looking for cheaper life insurance rates through term life insurance.
If you want to follow up or find out more information on Voya, call their customer service phone number and they will take over from there.
