Before you buy anything, check the policy you already have
This is the most valuable thing on the page and it costs us a sale to tell you. If you own a term policy, it almost certainly has a conversion right, and that right lets you turn it into permanent coverage with no medical questions and no exam, priced at your current age. For someone whose health has changed since they bought it, conversion is frequently the only permanent coverage they can still get at any price. The catch is the deadline, and it is earlier than anyone expects. Among the carriers whose current documents we read, one closes the window at the end of the level period or at attained age 70, whichever comes first, and gives only five policy years if the policy was issued at 66 or older. Another closes it at the earlier of five years before the term ends or the policy anniversary at age 65, which means a 70 year old holding that policy has already lost the right without ever being told. Nobody writes to remind you. So find the policy, read the conversion provision, and note the date. If you cannot find it, the carrier will tell you in one phone call, and so will we at no cost. That single check is worth more than anything else on this page.
If you are retiring from a job with group life, you have 31 days
California puts this in statute and almost nobody knows it. Under Insurance Code section 10209, a group life certificate has to give you the right to apply within 31 days of your employment ending, at your then attained age, without producing evidence of insurability, for an individual policy in any form the insurer customarily issues other than term. The amount equals what you were covered for under the group plan when you left. Read that again, because three things in it matter. Thirty one days, which is short. No evidence of insurability, which means your health does not disqualify you. And a permanent form rather than term, which is exactly the coverage that becomes hard to buy after 65. The same section carries a protection people find reassuring: if you die during that 31 day window, before the individual policy has taken effect, the amount is payable as a claim under the group policy, whether or not you had applied or paid the premium. So the window is not a trapdoor. But it closes, and it closes fast, and retirement is precisely the moment when nobody is thinking about paperwork.
What is actually issuable at 65, 70, 75 and 80
Among the carriers whose current product documents we read, and this is a sample rather than a law of the market, the picture narrows in stages. At 65 almost everything is still open. Level term out to twenty years, guaranteed universal life with guarantees running to age 121, fully underwritten whole life, final expense, and guaranteed acceptance. At 70 term narrows to ten and fifteen year lengths. Guaranteed universal life and whole life remain available. This is the last age band where any exam free path exists at all, and only up to about $500,000 with medical records ordered. At 75 it is ten year term, with one fifteen year plan issuing at exactly 75. One simplified issue term product is available to 75 but capped at $350,000. Guaranteed universal life runs to 80 and whole life to 85 on full medical underwriting. At 80 a ten year level term is the last term product standing. Realistically the products are final expense, to 85, and guaranteed acceptance, typically 45 to 85 with no health questions. Past 85 we found nothing beyond final expense and guaranteed acceptance, with face amounts shrinking as you go: one final expense product drops its maximum from $35,000 to $15,000 at 81. So yes, term is issuable past 65 and past 75, and the practical ceiling among the carriers we looked at is 80 for a ten year level period.
The medical exam does not go away with age, it comes back
This is the opposite of what the advertising implies, and it is worth understanding before you fill anything in. The accelerated, no exam underwriting that has become normal is built for people roughly 20 to 60. It does not extend upward. From about 61 to 70 it survives only in reduced form, with lower face amount caps and a statement from your doctor required in every case. From 71 upward every carrier we examined reverts to full underwriting at every face amount from $100,000: vitals, blood, urine, medical records, and pharmacy and claims history. Several add age specific steps, including a daily activities questionnaire over 70 and an activities of daily living questionnaire from 75, with records ordered automatically. The evidence also expires faster, so a file that sits too long has to be redone. The practical consequence: a page promising a 72 year old no medical exam is promising something no carrier in our sample offers, except on small simplified issue or guaranteed acceptance plans where the trade is a lower face amount or a waiting period. If that promise is what drew you in, ask what the face amount cap is and what the policy pays in the first two years.
If you are already seriously ill, do these in this order
Do not start by shopping for new coverage, because new coverage is the hardest and most expensive route and often the worst one available to you. Start with the policy you own. Most policies already carry a terminal illness accelerated death benefit rider at no extra premium, letting you draw a large share of the death benefit early, commonly up to seventy five percent and capped in the region of $500,000, usually as a lien against the eventual payout. Chronic illness riders also exist but are age limited at the point of issue and generally require failure of two of six activities of daily living or severe cognitive impairment, so they cannot be added later. Second, conversion, as above. Only then consider selling the policy. California regulates life settlements in detail at Insurance Code sections 10113.1 to 10113.35, and the protections are real: licensing, a broker fiduciary duty owed to you and not to the buyer, a fee computed on the offer rather than on the face amount, fourteen separate signed disclosures in 12 point type, and a 30 day right to rescind. The statute itself requires that you be told accelerated benefits from your own insurer are an alternative, and that selling can forfeit your conversion rights and any waiver of premium. That ordering is the statute's own logic, and it is ours: rider first, conversion second, sale last.
Three things California law gives you when you are the buyer
First, a longer look. If a policy or annuity is delivered to a senior citizen in California, the notice on its cover must allow at least thirty days to send it back for a refund, against a ten day minimum generally. The clock starts when the policy arrives, so read that notice the day it does. Second, notice before anyone comes to your home. If an agent intends to meet you at home about life insurance or an annuity, California requires written notice delivered to you between 24 hours and 14 days beforehand, as a stand alone document with nothing attached, in 16 point bold type, carrying the agent's full name exactly as it appears on the California licence, the licence number, and a mailing address. An agent proposing to come round tomorrow with none of that has told you something useful. Third, a warning in writing before you liquidate anything. If you are 65 or older and an agent suggests selling an asset to fund a policy, cashing in a certificate of deposit, a mutual fund, a bond or an annuity, California requires that agent to tell you in writing that doing so may carry tax consequences, early withdrawal penalties or other costs, and that you may want independent advice first. In writing, before the sale, not afterwards.
Why being in Los Angeles matters for this decision
Two reasons that are specific rather than decorative. The amount you need is usually set by housing here, because a mortgage in this county is the largest number in most households' arithmetic, and it decides both how much coverage and for how long. And the conversation itself often needs to happen in a language other than English, with family in the room, which is harder to arrange across three time zones than across town. We work from Century City and Valley Village, in English, Spanish, and Hebrew, directly rather than through an interpreter, because underwriting questions about your health are the worst possible place for a translation error. Most of the work happens by phone and video regardless. If the honest answer is that your existing policy or your group conversion right is the better route, that is what you will hear, and we will help you check it either way.
The cheapest coverage is often the one you already own
If you take one thing from this page, take the deadline. Find your term policy and read its conversion provision, or if you are leaving a job, count 31 days from your last day. Those two rights expire quietly and neither one requires you to be healthy. Everything else on this page can wait a week; those cannot.
Ask a licensed Los Angeles agent what you can still get, in English, Spanish, or Hebrew. No cost, no obligation.
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