Talking about end-of-life preparations, including life insurance, is certainly not the most comfortable conversation to have with your family, but such foresight can alleviate financial burdens and emotional stress when the time comes. Choosing the right life insurance can ease the logistics of death so you can focus on your family during a very difficult time. Fortunately, the best family life insurance companies offer customizable policies to suit a wide range of family situations. Here are our picks for the best family life insurance in 2025, focusing on the best policies for certain family needs.
Best Family Life Insurance
- Best for customer service: State Farm Life Insurance
- Best for pregnant individuals: Corebridge Direct
- Best for child riders: Protective Life
- Best for military families: USAA Life Insurance
- Best for low-income families: Mass Mutual Life Insurance
- Best for affordability: Legal & General America Life Insurance
- Best for whole life policies: Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance
- Best for universal survivorship policies: Prudential Life Insurance
State Farm Life Insurance: Best Family Life Insurance for Customer Service
Topping our list, based on J.D. Power’s customer service rankings, is State Farm. This provider offers family life insurance to protect all members of your immediate family under a single policy. State Farm’s reputation for top-rated customer service and strong financial stability is well-earned. They continue to deliver excellent user experiences as a customer-focused company.
State Farm offers term, whole, and universal policies with coverage options up to $10 million. A family insurance plan can be created by purchasing State Farm’s Select Term or Whole Life plans. Term riders and children’s riders are available to cover the rest of your family. A term rider provides additional coverage for you or another person on a select term or whole-life policy. Premiums remain level for 10 to 30 years, depending on the term length of your policy. The offer also allows you to convert your term policy to a permanent policy if needed. The children’s rider provides up to $20,000 in death benefits per child. You only need to purchase the rider once to cover all your current and future children. Your children qualify for coverage from 15 days old to 25 years old, at which point you can terminate the rider. After that, the child has the option to convert to permanent coverage.
Corebridge Direct: Best Family Life Insurance for Pregnant Individuals
If you are pregnant, finding life insurance can become a challenge, particularly as your pregnancy progresses. Thankfully, Corebridge Direct is amenable to expectant parents. While most providers will postpone your application past the first trimester, Corebridge provides coverage at any stage of your pregnancy if you are healthy.
The insurance company also provides a built-in terminal illness rider for all its policies. If you become terminally ill, you can use your death benefit to ease the financial burden rather than relying on your family to cover medical bills. Corebridge Financial also offers a child rider for up to $25,000 coverage per child.
Protective Life: Best Family Life Insurance for Child Riders
A child rider is a life insurance rider that provides a death benefit, often to cover funeral expenses, if your child dies. This rider is frequently added to your policy, regardless of your child’s specific health condition. Protective Life offers what may be the best insurance for child riders.
Protective Life offers a maximum of $25,000 in coverage per child for all current and future children. Once your child turns 25, they can convert the rider to a permanent policy with five times the rider’s initial face value.
USAA Life Insurance: Best Family Life Insurance for Military Families
USAA’s insurance policies and financial services are specifically designed to meet the needs of military members, reserve members, veterans, and their families, though they are available to the general public. While the rates remain competitive for USAA Life Insurance, the value and diversity of their plans are limited compared to other companies. However, they are particularly suitable for active military members who may not find coverage elsewhere.
If you are between 18 and 35, you may qualify for coverage. Qualified applicants can renew their term life insurance until 95 years of age. However, like many insurance policies, you may see higher rates, lower death benefits, and renewed waiting periods at each renewal. Also, an important thing to remember is that life insurance companies do not guarantee renewal unless you buy an extra rider with participating life insurers. Even then, the rates and coverage amount are not guaranteed.
Your USAA insurance policy includes the Military Severe Injury Benefit rider and the Life Event Option rider without additional cost. The Military Severe Injury Benefit rider qualifies you for up to $25,000 in reimbursement if you are injured while performing military duties. The Life Event Option rider is equivalent to a guaranteed insurability rider; many providers charge a fee to include this coverage. This rider guarantees up to $100,000 in coverage for qualifying events like getting married or having a child.
MassMutual Life Insurance: Best Family Life Insurance for Low-Income Families
MassMutual’s LifeBridge program offers $50,000 in free coverage for legal guardians and parents. The policy has no early withdrawal or investment options. Instead, should you pass unexpectedly, the money would go into a trust for your children’s education expenses. To qualify for this, eligible applicants must be in good health and between 19 and 42 years old. Both parents and legal guardians are eligible for coverage. Dependents under this plan must be 19 or younger. Household income is also capped at $40,000, although qualifying policyholders must earn at least $10,000 annually.
Legal & General America Life Insurance: Best Family Life Insurance for Affordability
Legal & General America Life Insurance is our top affordable pick because it offers the best value for your investment. This provider has excellent financial health marks along with a best-in-class, no-medical-exam option. Applicants between 20 and 75 years of age may apply for life insurance with no cap on coverage and with terms of up to 40 years.
Legal & General America Life Insurance is relatively lenient for applicants with disabilities, mental health issues, and high blood pressure. However, those with severe health complications like HIV and cancer may not qualify for coverage. Above all else, Legal & General America aims to provide affordable options for many insureds. If you’re looking for HIV-specific policies, companies like Guardian are increasingly progressive; however, restrictions still apply.
Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance: Best Family Life Insurance for Whole Life Policies
If you are looking for a comprehensive whole life policy designed to protect your family, look no further than Northwestern Mutual. That insurance company consistently receives high customer satisfaction and maintains high marks in financial stability.
Northwestern Mutual’s Whole Life Plus policy is highly customizable. You can choose to pay more or less on your policy, depending on when you wish to fund your policy and stop paying premiums. You can also supplement your whole life insurance plan with a term life policy to increase your death benefits at a better rate. It is important to note that Northwestern Mutual doesn’t offer a child rider. However, unlike many major insurance providers, your child can qualify for a whole-life policy when the company has no minimum age requirement. Your child can start taking advantage of the lucrative cash value component from an early age and grow with their policy as they age. Once your child is of working age, they can explore options for more coverage with Northwestern Mutual or other companies. A child policy will give them a head start.
Prudential Life Insurance: Best Family Life Insurance for Universal Survivorship Policies
Prudential is a reputable company that offers an affordable second-to-die or survivorship policy. Such a survivorship policy covers two people under a single policy, which is typically more affordable than buying two separate permanent policies.
This policy applies age and some other restrictions to the second insured. Policy payments can continue as long as the second co-insured party is alive. Early withdrawal options also apply during both insured buyers’ lifetimes. The idea here is to maximize your benefits over time.
Prudential’s joint life insurance comes with a no-lapse guarantee, meaning your policy will remain in force for a set number of years even if your cash value drops to zero, as long as you pay the premiums. Therefore, you may even be approved for this policy if your partner does not qualify for an individual policy. Its universal policies track the S&P 500; therefore, you can gain substantial cash value growth to meet your long-term wealth-building and retirement goals.
What is Family Life Insurance?
Family life insurance isn’t an official type of life insurance. It usually describes a life insurance policy that covers multiple family members: a married couple or a parent and child, for instance. These can be permanent or term life insurance policies. A family life insurance policy can serve several purposes beyond typical coverage. It can cover lost income from one or two working parents, as well as childcare costs if a stay-at-home parent dies. Death benefits from a family life insurance policy can also cover funeral and burial expenses.
Types of Family Life Insurance Policies
Several types of life insurance fall under the general umbrella of “family life insurance.” They include:
- Joint Life Insurance: This is a single insurance policy that covers two individuals, usually a married couple. In a type of joint life insurance called “first-to-die” joint life insurance, if one of the individuals dies, the policy pays out to the surviving policyholder.
- Survivorship Life Insurance: Similar to a joint life insurance policy, a survivorship policy, also known as a second-to-die policy, covers two individuals under the same policy. However, unlike joint policies, survivorship policies only pay out the death benefit when both covered individuals die.
- Term Life Insurance with Riders: You can obtain life insurance coverage for your family by adding riders to your life insurance policy. Specifically, you’ll want to look into dependent life insurance, which pays a death benefit if a covered spouse, child, or another dependent dies. These can be added to a traditional policy or be purchased as a stand-alone policy.
How to Pick the Best Family Life Insurance
The need to think about death, and the potential loss of loved ones, is never pleasant; however, it’s essential to prepare for the inevitable, including death, retirement, illness, and planning for other positive things, such as the costs associated with college. Therefore, when shopping for life insurance, buyers should take a few factors into consideration.
- Budget: The average term life insurance policy costs between $40 and $55 per month. Cheaper rates are possible, but keep in mind that inexpensive does not necessarily mean higher quality. Permanent life insurance policies tend to be more expensive. If you are older or have pre-existing conditions, get ready for higher premiums than the industry average.
- Occupation and lifestyle: If you engage in a risky hobby, such as skydiving, or have a dangerous job, such as mining, you may have to pay a higher premium. However, you can obtain the best rate by shopping around for high-quality providers.
- Health: Healthy individuals typically have no problem purchasing a life insurance policy. However, providers characterize smokers, or applicants with certain pre-existing medical conditions, in a higher risk class, and therefore, more costly to insure. Some health conditions may preclude you from life insurance.
- Length and coverage amount: Consider your long-term financial plans and ways that life insurance may help you reach your goals. If you aim to maximize your term life insurance policy, some companies will insure you for more than 40 years with coverage that exceeds $1 million. Alternatively, for the best long-term prices and wealth-building opportunities, applying for whole life policies at a younger age is often better.
- Age: Age is a major factor in underwriting life insurance policies because age-related conditions constitute a higher risk. Younger policyholders often receive better rates. If you are over 60, look into companies that cater to senior clients that offer competitive prices, and benefits to meet your needs, such as AARP or Prudential.
- Company trustworthiness: Death is a stressful event. So, it’s essential to work with a reliable company offering good customer service to make the process easier. To evaluate a company’s financial health and track record for quality customer service, we suggest reviewing AM Best and J. D. Power’s customer satisfaction life insurance scores to determine a company’s trustworthiness.
Alani Asis is a personal finance expert with experience covering insurance, retirement, and credit. Her work has been published in AARP, CNN Underscored, Forbes, Fortune, PolicyGenius, and U.S. News & World Report.
Evelyn He is a compliance and operations associate for Business Insider’s Personal Finance team.
