Term Life Insurance — Why I Recommend Midland National Premier Term

Not all term life insurance policies are the same. The death benefit is the baseline, but the features built into a policy can make or break its value when you actually need it. Midland National’s Premier Term Series is the product I recommend to families looking for more than just a basic death benefit. We walk through the full product in our companion video.

What Term Life Insurance Actually Does

Term life insurance is pure protection. You choose a coverage amount and a term length. If you die during that term, your beneficiaries receive the death benefit — generally income tax free. If you outlive the term, the policy expires. There is no cash value and no investment component. You are buying a death benefit for a fixed period at a guaranteed level premium.

Term life covers specific financial obligations. It replaces your income for your family, pays off a mortgage, covers outstanding debts, funds your children’s education, or eases the transfer of a small business. It works because it is temporary and straightforward.

Why Midland National

Midland National Life Insurance Company has been in business since 1906. They are part of Sammons Financial Group, and they are employee-owned. That means they are not publicly traded and not chasing quarterly earnings. Their focus is on long-term commitments to policyholders.

Financial strength matters more in life insurance than in almost any other product you buy. When the claim comes, the carrier has to pay. Midland National carries A+ ratings from A.M. Best (second highest of 15 categories), S&P Global Ratings (fifth highest of 22 categories), and Fitch Ratings (fifth highest of 19 categories).

Premier Term: What You Get

The Premier Term Series offers 10, 15, 20, and 30-year level term options. Your premium is guaranteed not to change during the term you select. After the level period ends, coverage can continue on an annual renewable basis, but premiums will increase.

The 30-year term is still available. That matters because a number of carriers have dropped their 30-year option. If you are in your 30s with young kids and you want coverage that lasts until they are financially independent, a 30-year term is hard to beat — and it is getting harder to find.

Living Benefits — The Real Differentiator

Here is where Premier Term separates itself from most term products on the market. According to the CDC Foundation, chronic diseases are responsible for 7 out of 10 deaths in the United States. Heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease. During the term of your policy, you are statistically far more likely to be diagnosed with a serious chronic or critical illness than you are to die.

Most basic term policies only pay when you die. If you are diagnosed with cancer but survive, your policy does nothing. If you have a heart attack and cannot work, your policy sits there. It only activates when you die.

Midland National’s Premier Term includes accelerated death benefit endorsements for terminal illness, critical illness, and chronic illness — at no additional premium. You do not pay extra for them.

Terminal illness: If you are diagnosed with a condition resulting in a life expectancy of 24 months or less (depending on the state), you can accelerate a portion of the death benefit while you are still alive. Those funds can be used for anything — medical expenses, family support, or getting your affairs in order.

Critical illness: A qualifying event — heart attack, stroke, major organ transplant, end-stage renal failure, invasive cancer, among others — can trigger an accelerated benefit. This is money from your death benefit you can access while alive and dealing with the condition.

Chronic illness: If you are certified as chronically ill — meaning you cannot perform at least two of six activities of daily living (bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, transferring, and continence) without assistance, or you require substantial supervision due to severe cognitive impairment — you can accelerate a portion of the death benefit. On the term product, the chronic illness benefit is underwritten at the time of claim.

One important detail: when you accelerate a portion of the death benefit, the face amount is reduced by the amount accelerated, and a discount is applied. The actual amount you receive will be less than the face amount accelerated. There is also an administration fee at the time of election. This is not free money on top of the death benefit. It is early access to a portion of it.

Accelerated Underwriting

Midland National offers non-fluid accelerated underwriting on Premier Term. In many cases, that means no blood draw and no medical exam. If you are age 50 or under, you can qualify for up to $2 million in coverage without fluids — roughly 62 percent of applicants in that age range get approved at standard to preferred rates with no exam. Between ages 51 and 60, you can qualify for up to $1 million without fluids, with approximately 27 percent getting approved that way.

The exam requirement is one of the biggest reasons people put off buying life insurance. They know they need it. They just do not want to deal with the process. Accelerated underwriting removes that barrier for a significant number of applicants.

Children’s Term Rider

Premier Term offers a Children’s Term Life Insurance Rider that lets you insure your child’s life on the same policy. There is no additional policy fee — you pay additional premium for the rider only. The child can later convert that coverage into a permanent policy without evidence of insurability. If your child develops a health condition later in life, they will already have guaranteed access to permanent coverage.

Conversion Option

Premier Term is convertible to most of Midland National’s currently available permanent life insurance products without evidence of insurability. The conversion windows vary by term length: within the first 7 years on a 10-year term, 12 years on a 15-year term, 15 years on a 20-year term, and 20 years on a 30-year term — or before age 70. The conversion period is never less than 5 years regardless of issue age.

Waiver of Premium Rider

For an additional cost, Premier Term offers a Waiver of Term Premium for Disability Rider. If you become totally disabled, your entire premium is waived. This rider is available for issue ages 18 to 59 and ends at age 65.

Who Should Consider This Product

If you are shopping for term life insurance and you want more than just a death benefit, Premier Term delivers. The living benefits at no additional premium, accelerated underwriting, the children’s rider, and the conversion option make it a strong package.

If you already have a term policy that does not include living benefits — and many older policies do not — it is worth comparing what you have against what Premier Term offers. In many cases, you can get the same or better coverage with living benefits included at a comparable or lower premium.

If you have been putting off buying life insurance because you did not want to deal with a medical exam, the accelerated underwriting may remove that excuse.

Get a Quote

We are able to offer Midland National in nearly every state and US territory. If you want to see what a Premier Term policy looks like for your age and coverage amount, get a quote and we will connect you with an agent who can walk you through the living benefits and help you figure out whether this is the right fit. We serve families across Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and California — and for life insurance, nearly every state nationwide.

For more on life insurance, watch our video on life insurance mistakes most families don’t notice.