Reliance Standard Life Insurance 2022

The benefits explained

• Superior financial rating: Reliance Standard has an A++ (Superior) rating from AM Best. This is the highest rating available, indicating that it is a financially stable company capable of meeting its ongoing insurance obligations, such as claims.
• Provides bereavement counseling policies: Losing someone you love is difficult. To help you through the process, Reliance Standard offers qualified professional telephone counseling services to all covered employees and their family members.
• Guaranteed issue for employees and often spouses: If you meet your employer’s requirements, you are automatically approved for group term life insurance coverage as long as you enroll before your benefits deadline. Reliance Standard also offers additional voluntary term life insurance policies with guaranteed coverage. In many cases, you can also purchase guaranteed coverage for your spouse.

Disadvantages Explained

• Only sells term life insurance: Reliance Standard sells term policies. You can get group term life insurance if your employer buys it and you can voluntarily sign up for additional term coverage, but there is no permanent life insurance available unless you convert an existing term policy in permanent cover.
• Policies available only through participating employees: Reliance Standard sells policies to employers with at least 10 employees. Individuals cannot purchase a policy. If your employer does not use Reliance Standard as part of your benefits package, you will not be able to purchase this coverage.
• Limited information available on the company’s website: Reliance Standard’s public website contains little product information. More information is available for employers when engaging with a broker or agent.

Index of complaints

Reliance Standard Life Assurance Company has received slightly more complaints than expected over the past three years for its group policies, given its size. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) calculates a complaints index to help readers compare different companies.

A Complaints Index of 1.00 indicates that a business received an expected number of complaints based on its size. An index below 1.00 indicates that the company has received fewer complaints than expected; greater than 1.00 means it received more complaints than expected.

Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company had complaint indices of 0.22, 0.23 and 0.23 for 2021, 2020 and 2019, respectively. This shows that the company received fewer complaints than expected for its size.

Third-party ranking

Reliance Standard has been awarded an A++ (Superior) financial strength rating by an independent rating agency AM Best. This is the highest rating available. In fact, only nine of the 91 life insurance companies we reviewed received an A++ (Superior) rating. This indicates that the company has a superior ability to meet its ongoing insurance obligations, such as paying claims.

Policies available

Reliance Standard offers a very limited selection of insurance plans.

Group term life insurance

You obtain group life insurance through your employer. If your employer offers this benefit, you can enroll and pay for coverage through payroll deductions. Group life insurance is generally guaranteed issue. This means that you cannot be denied coverage because of your medical condition. If you’re having trouble getting approved for other types of life insurance, group term insurance might be a good option.

Voluntary term life insurance

Reliance Standard also offers employees the option of purchasing voluntary term life insurance for themselves and their spouses. These are individual policies that you pay for if you want to increase your coverage. You, and often your spouse, may qualify for guaranteed issue coverage if you meet the health eligibility criteria.

Runners available

You can customize your life insurance policies with endorsements. Reliance Standard offers a few choices.

Child Rider

The Child Rider allows you to add term insurance coverage to your policy for your dependent children. If your child dies while you are on this rider, you will receive a small death benefit.

Premium waiver

Group policies include a Waiver of Premium rider, which allows you to stop paying your insurance premiums while you recover from total disability.

Accelerated Death Benefit: Terminal Illness Rider

If you are diagnosed with a terminal illness that shortens your life expectancy, you may be able to use the Terminal Illness Rider to access a portion of your life insurance death benefit sooner. This type of jumper is known as accelerated death benefit. You can use the money to pay medical bills or whatever you want. However, this will reduce the death benefit of your beneficiaries.

Customer service

Reliance Standard has limited options for customer support. You can reach its customer service center weekdays from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET by calling 800-351-7500. If you are an existing customer, you may be able to get some basic questions answered through your secure online account.

Our Methodology: How We Life Insurance Companies

We have designed a comprehensive ranking methodology based on consumer priorities and life insurance company fundamentals to rank over 90 insurers in five general categories: financial stability, customer satisfaction, variety of products and features, experience of overall purchase and cost.

To do this, we collected over 5,000 data points and scored each company based on 55 metrics. We’ve grouped the metrics by category to see insurers’ performance in each; we then weighted the category scores to determine overall company performance.

For more, read our full Life insurance methodology.