Chris Kissell is a Denver-based writer and editor with work featured on U.S. News & World Report, MSN Money, Fox Business, Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Money Talks News and more.
Nupur Gambhir is a content editor and licensed life, health, and disability insurance expert. She has extensive experience bringing brands to life and has built award-nominated campaigns for travel and tech. Her insurance expertise has been featured in Bloomberg News, Forbes Advisor, CNET, Fortune, Slate, Real Simple, Lifehacker, The Financial Gym, and the end-of-life planning service.
Why you should trust Insure.com
Quality Verified
Our take: Bestow comes out on top for a quick and seamless application process. After answering just a few questions about your health and lifestyle choices, you can get a quote and purchase coverage.
Bestow is a relatively young insurer that offers term policies. It’s financially stable, according to rating firm A.M. Best, and provides insurance at a competitive rate. Bestow offers people an expedient life insurance application and quick turnaround time. Your coverage is active immediately after your application is approved. If you want coverage now, Bestow is the way to go.
What Bestow has to say: Today’s customers expect a frictionless online buying experience for everything, including life insurance,” says Melbourne O’Banion, Bestow’s co-founder and chief executive officer.
Pros:
Cons:
Trustworthiness: The Better Business Bureau evaluates businesses on their behavior, trustworthiness, and performance. A business with a high ranking from the BBB can be trusted to meet its commitments. The BBB gives Bestow an A+.
Financial strength: A.M. Best evaluates a company’s financial health and its ability to meet its financial obligations. A.M. Best gives Bestow an A+.
Customer experience: Trustpilot is an online platform for individuals to provide reviews of companies and their customer experience. Trustpilot gives Bestow a rating of 4.6 out of a possible 5. Scores as of October 4, 2022.
Additional product line details: At this time, Bestow only offers one product, its online term life insurance policy.
The company offers a four-step application process. You enter your email, address and Social Security Number; provide basic life information, such as your citizenship and medical history; pick a beneficiary; and then, if approved, choose your coverage amount and term length and purchase the policy.
You can get coverage the same day that you apply — sometimes within minutes.
“We are constantly improving our product and platform. Our plan is to bring the same underlying approach to new products: frictionless experiences and affordable products that serve the mass market of consumers in any channel,” O’Banion says.
For healthy non-smokers:
The following table shows Bestow monthly rates by age and gender for healthy non-smokers purchasing 20-year term policies. Note: Applicants age 55 who smoke are only eligible for 10-year policies.
For smokers:
The following table shows Bestow monthly rates by age and gender for smokers purchasing 20-year term policies. Some older smokers are not eligible for coverage.
How its rates stack up:
The following table shows how Bestow’s monthly rates for a healthy 35-year-old compares with selected competitors for $500,000 in coverage.
Company background: The company was founded by entrepreneurs Melbourne O’Banion and Jonathan Abelmann. O’Banion says that getting life insurance has traditionally been a four- to six-week process that involved medical exams and working with an agent. “We just thought that was crazy,” he says.
Bestow says it differs from other online life insurance companies in that it uses its own technology to underwrite the policies it offers — allowing it to accelerate the underwriting process.
Interesting tidbit: In July 2022, the insurer partnered with Empathy, a company that developed a bereavement-care platform. Bestow customers can access Empathy’s app, which helps simplify tasks, such as the end-of-life paperwork and estate administration, that arise when a loved one dies.