Until recently, if you wanted a large amount of life insurance at a low cost, you had to fill out paperwork, have a medical exam, provide a urine sample or have blood drawn, and then wait 30 to 90 days for a policy.

However, this is changing. Some companies are making it easier to obtain life insurance. It only takes a few minutes to apply online for instant life insurance, and coverage can range into the millions of dollars without the need for a medical exam.

What is instant life insurance?

Instant life insurance is coverage that is easy to obtain and does not require a medical exam. However, these policies are not the same as guaranteed issue life insurance, which is a small and expensive product marketed to seniors. Instead, instant life insurance typically estimates rates through a process known as "accelerated underwriting." An insurer uses data about you to feed into algorithms that calculate your risk of dying prematurely. This process frequently provides the company with enough information to make a quick decision and offer competitively priced coverage on the spot.

How does it work?

1. Typically, you apply online by answering questions about yourself and your health.
2. The company obtains information about you from a variety of databases with your permission. It can, for example, check prescription databases to determine what medications you've taken. It can check your driving record to see if you've had any traffic violations. It can also check MIB Group data to see if any health conditions arose when you applied for individual health or life insurance with other companies. MIB, which is owned by its member insurance companies, keeps a database of information from insurance applications.
3. In most cases, you'll find out whether you've been accepted within minutes of submitting your application.

No one who has been approved for coverage is required to take a life insurance medical exam. However, coverage is not guaranteed, which means you may be denied coverage based on factors such as your health, lifestyle, or age.

Types of life insurance underwriting

When looking for an instant term life insurance policy, you may come across terms like "automated underwriting," "accelerated underwriting," and "simplified issue," which all mean the same thing.

Automated underwriting refers to the lack of human involvement in the approval process.

Accelerated underwriting entails a quick application process made possible by the use of algorithms and more data points.

Simplified issue underwriting uses fewer data points than accelerated underwriting to determine whether to issue you a policy and how much you'll pay.

Policies that use more data, on average, can provide more competitively priced policies with higher coverage amounts. If the insurer only considers a few data points to assess risk, the best rates may be unavailable.

Instant life insurance with an exam

Some companies use accelerated underwriting to expedite the application process, but they reserve the right to request a medical exam if necessary. This means you may be approved immediately or asked to complete additional steps before receiving a response. Applicants who are accelerated through the process without taking an exam pay the same price and receive the same product as if they had taken an exam.

Where can I locate instant life insurance policies?

Here are some no-medical-exam instant term life insurance policies that provide quick yes-or-no answers.

Because some use more data than others to determine your eligibility and price, premiums are likely to vary greatly. Before purchasing life insurance, it is always a good idea to compare quotes.

Methodology: Life insurance ratings

For individual life insurance, InsuredCircle life insurance ratings are based on weighted averages of financial strength ratings, which indicate a company's ability to pay future claims, and complaint index scores from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. We converted the scores to a curved 5-point scale to calculate each insurer's rating.

These ratings are intended to serve as a guide, but we recommend that you shop around and compare several insurance quotes to find the best rate for you. InsuredCircle is not compensated for any reviews.

Insurer complaints methodology

In 2018-2020, InsuredCircle investigated complaints received by state insurance regulators and reported to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. To compare insurers, the NAIC calculates a complaint index for each subsidiary each year, measuring its share of total complaints relative to its size, or share of total premiums in the industry. InsuredCircle calculated a similar index for each insurer, weighted by market shares of each subsidiary, over a three-year period to evaluate a company's complaint history. Auto, home (including renters and condo), and life insurance ratios are calculated separately.