My Haven Life Insurance Review: No one actually thinks they are going to die young and unexpectedly. And thinking about you or your loved ones dying before they reach a nice old age isn’t exactly a fun thing to think about. But the reality is, it happens all the time. It happens too much. In fact, it happened to my mom. She was 28, married to her college sweet heart, and had two adorable kids under the age of 3. Her husband boarded a private plane one morning, and that was the last time she saw him. Yes, every spouses worst nightmare. The plane crashed and she was left picking up the pieces of the beautiful life they’d built off the floor. A small consolation during that time was the fact that her husband had a life insurance policy which she and my brother and sister were able to live on while she figured out what to do next. It’s very difficult to imagine how horrible and stressful that time would have been if she hadn’t had that time to grieve and take care of her kids- she other wise would have had to rush back to work. It would have been doable. But stressful. Harder than it already was.

And that’s exactly why my husband and I got a life insurance policy recently. [Related: Do I Really Need Life Insurance?] If one of us died, we each have decent earning potential- we can both work. But we knew we’d each want at least a little time before we had to rush back to work so that we could grieve and figure life out. Plus, another scenario we imagined was what if we both died? What would happen to our son? We don’t have enough saved up that he could live off for the next several years. And while our student loans would be eliminated at our death and we don’t have a mortgage anymore, the thought of leaving our little guy with nothing was soul crushing to me. I don’t think life insurance is for everyone (talking about term life insurance here. I think whole life insurance is literally for no one but that’s another post) but if life insurance is right for you (we’ll discuss that next) Haven is the biggest bang for your buck out there. So, here’s my honest Haven Life Insurance review.

MY HONEST HAVEN LIFE INSURANCE REVIEW 

The application process = easy.

I thought the application process was really painless. The application was done entirely online and took me about 10 minutes. (Access the application here). We had temporary coverage the same day. You’ll be asked some pretty basic questions about your employment and health, including information like your height, weight, and lifestyle habits. That’s pretty much it. Assuming you don’t have any major health issues that raised red flags in your application, you’ll likely be approved for coverage that can start that day. You might not even have to take a medical exam depending on your answers to the questions in the application, age, and whether your coverage is above $1 million. If Haven requires a medical exam from you, they will then contact you to set up an appointment with a medical professional who can come to your house (or place of employment) and give you a very quick medical exam. Ours took about 15 minutes at home. I was very impressed/pleased that they came to us. It made it easy peasy. They take a blood sample to test for things like high cholesterol, tobacco/nicotine/drug use, diabetes etc. Assuming that all looks good, you’ll have your official policy just as soon as the results come in.

It’s legitimate. 

Another thing I clearly liked about Haven Life is that they’re underwritten by MassMutual, which is one of the leading insurance companies in the nation and is highly rated. Once I found out Haven Life was underwritten by MassMutual, I was pretty much sold. It has been around for 160 years and paid out $5 billion in 2016. It has an S&P rating of AA+, Moody’s rating of Aa2, and AM rating of A++. So they are legitimate. Buying life insurance can feel pretty scammy (this is because of people selling extremely expensive whole life insurance to people who don’t need it). Haven Life feels not-scammy. And that’s a feeling I like. 🙂 One of the most important things you need out of a life insurance policy is to know that your policy holder is actually going to pay your beneficiaries, and that’s something you’ll get from Haven.

It’s cheap. 

I really didn’t know what I should expect to pay for life insurance but I was pleasantly surprised at how cheap it was. We pay $40 a month for a 20 year policy of $1m in coverage. If you’re in good health, it’s $20 for a 10 year policy at $1m in coverage. With a whole life insurance policy we’d be paying hundreds of dollars every month, for a way longer time, for way less coverage. I only found one other insurer that offered a cheaper monthly rate, and it was a company that was not nearly as financially secure as Haven Life and was only a couple of bucks less per month (aka, it wasn’t as legit. As we’ve discussed, a life insurance policy doesn’t do me any good if it doesn’t actually pay my beneficiaries when I die).

Everyone is doing it. 

Another reason I decided to go for Haven was because a lot of people that I know already had policies with them. I know I know. We shouldn’t do things just because everyone else is doing them but it gave me confidence that a lot of my friends were already using Haven Life and had good experiences with them.

You can back out. 

Should you get cold feet about your policy, you can always back out of it. You’re not going to be tied into it like you might be for whole life insurance. Term is more like an auto insurance policy– if you stop making payments, you stop coverage. Simple as that.

Reasons you shouldn’t get Haven Life insurance:

Ok, so those were the good reasons to at least grab a quote from Haven. Since this is an honest Haven Life insurance review, let’s discuss who doesn’t need anything from them. You really don’t need Haven Life if:

You don’t have any beneficiaries. 

The only real reason you need a life insurance policy to begin with is to benefit your beneficiaries (kids, spouse, etc). So if you don’t have beneficiaries, there’s no need for it.

You’ve got assets. 

If you have enough savings/assets that your family could comfortably live on if you die, you also don’t need a policy from Haven Life. Remember, the whole point of life insurance is to take care of your family at your death. If they are already taken care of via savings, etc, you don’t need to worry about it.

You’re don’t have debt or have debt that will be eliminated at your death. 

If the only debt you carry is debt that will be eliminated when you die, you might not need a policy from Haven Life. An example of this would be federal student loans. Unless your spouse (or someone else) is a co-signor, your family won’t be on the hook for your student loans when you die, i.e., they won’t have to worry about making a tough student loan payment. This factor alone however is not enough- i would only go without life insurance If I didn’t have debt if I also had a big pile of savings as well.

You’re advanced in years. 

I couldn’t think of a softer way to say that you don’t need a life insurance policy if your advanced in years, i.e., old. The people who benefit most from life insurance policies are young-ish people. The older you are, the older your kids are, meaning they’re more likely to be at an age where they’re self sufficient. Also the older you are, the more likely it is you’ll have savings and not need the policy anyway.