Great Western Insurance Company Review (2024)

Preneed funeral insurance and final expense whole life insurance are coverage plans that you should consider when preparing for the future. These plans are designed to assist you and your family during a difficult time. They can provide you the peace of mind of knowing that things like funeral and burial expenses will be taken care of upon your passing, easing the stress on your family. 

Great Western Insurance Company specializes in preneed funeral insurance and final expense whole life insurance coverage. The company offers a variety of options from which you can choose in those areas. Each plan can help you prearrange your final wishes in different ways. 

If you’ve been searching for a place that offers solid and reasonably priced preneed and final expense coverage packages, Great Western Insurance might be a good place to start. However, there are many other insurance companies out there that offer similar coverage, and it’s always wise to shop around to find a plan that best suits your needs and finances.  Enter your ZIP code to compare free quotes from the top companies that carry preneed and final expense coverage.

About Great Western Life Insurance

Founded in 1983 and headquartered in Ogden, Utah, Great Western Life Insurance was started by John E. Lindquist of Lindquist Mortuaries & Cemeteries. The five-generation family business expanded from just a funeral and burial service to a life insurance company.

The company believes its funeral home background gives it the knowledge of knowing what you may need for your funeral service and life insurance needs.

This small, personable company brings in over $2.4 billion in assets and the resources of a larger insurance company. After many years of working with the American Enterprise Group, they were acquired by the company, and the two now work as one.

Licensed in 46 states and the District of Columbia, Great Western has one of the best surpluses-to-liability ratios in the insurance industry.

In addition to their funeral plans and life insurance coverage, Great Western life and annuity insurance company will help you with retirement. These plans can help you pay for some of those bills after retirement in addition to your 401(k).

Getting a group annuity fund agreement with Great Western Insurance Company also offers information regarding yield plus group funding annuity with one of its partners to balance yield and liquidity.

Compare Quotes From Top Companies and Save

 Secured with SHA-256 Encryption

Is Great Western Insurance a highly rated company?

Great Western is a solid company with a strong financial standing. It‘s part of a financially robust organization with more than $2.4 billion in assets.  A few years ago, mutual insurance holding company American Enterprise Group acquired Great Western following several years of business collaboration between the two companies. A.M. Best, one of the most trusted rating agencies, recently upgraded the financial strength rating of American Enterprise Group’s six insurance company subsidiaries from an A- to an A. GWIC is among that group of insurance companies.

Great Western’s surplus to liability ratio is among the highest in the industry, exceeding the margin of assets over liabilities and excess surplus standards that are averaged by America’s 25 largest life insurance companies.

Shopping for Great Western Life Insurance Quotes

When choosing your life insurance company, be sure to shop around for life insurance before you make your final decision. Also, try to look into how much life insurance to buy. These are both starting points, so let’s get right to it. What kind of rates can you expect from a company like Great Western?

Average Great Western Life Insurance Rates by Age

Your typical Great Western sample life insurance rates will more than likely be close to the average rate of a top 10 provider. If you’re in your 40s and are a non-smoker, you’re looking at anywhere in the $400 to $500 range per month. This will vary by the person, especially depending on your lifestyle, how much coverage you want, and the life insurance underwriting process.

On average, a single female in their 20s will have a monthly rate in the mid-100s, while an individual older than 50 will have payments closer to the 1,000s.

Average Annual Life Insurance Rates for Non-Smokers

If you’re married, your rates look about the same as someone who is single, but on average, your numbers don’t appear to be that much higher with some of the top companies if you smoke. Men still have higher payments by about $20.

Do you smoke? On average, smokers do pay more but according to research, it isn’t that much more than a non-smokers rate.

Average Annual Life Insurance Rates for Smokers

On average, you can pay two times more than a non-smoker on your life insurance. Unfortunately, for men, the payments are even higher. Smoking will raise your premium with just about any Insurer you choose.

Such a habit will cost you, on average, $30,000 more for your rate. Since research shows that smoking causes intense harm to your body, it’s a risk to insure someone who smokes.

Other habits or high-risk hobbies such as skydiving, mountain climbing, or race car driving can also be red flags to insurers. That doesn’t mean that they won’t insure you, but they will undoubtedly charge you more for it.

Even if you’re looking at one of the well-known companies’ policies like AARP’s guaranteed acceptance life insurance, based on the rates, your best bet for guaranteed acceptance life insurance at age 40 is with Great Western.

Men in their 40s on average are paying around $70 to $90 per month, while females are paying around $60 to $75 per month for $15,000 coverage, which is a pretty good deal.

Try to make sure you live a healthy lifestyle and make your payments on time to make it a little easier on the wallet.

Great Western’s Life Insurance Policies

Great Western (aka GW insurance) doesn’t offer that many options as far as types of life insurance go since their policies are geared toward certain crowds. In a nutshell, they offer you whole life insurance. They have variations of permanent or whole life insurance.

The company also offers no-exam life insurance.

Whole Life Insurance

Great Western does offer whole life coverage for anyone. Although if you’re older, whole life may be easier to qualify for, it can be more expensive than term life. Your rate will never change, however, and you can build cash value while your life insurance ages. Learn how much whole life insurance costs.

This means you can feel free to withdraw some money out of your return but make sure to pay it back. If you don’t pay this back, you could end up having it deducted from your death benefit.

Great Western’s policies have a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

Whole life insurance is good for families or just about anyone. If you want to make sure you and your family are covered if something were to happen to you, this is a good way to cover all your bases.

Burial & Final Expense Insurance

First, let’s start with Great Western final expense insurance. So, how much is final expense insurance? These policies can be a little different, but you can look at some sample final expense rates and see if it’s right for you. Great Western’s final expense insurance is a type of whole life insurance that helps your family pay any expenses that may occur.

Your family or beneficiary will decide how the money is used, whether it be for medical bills or any unpaid balances you had. Policies will carry a cash value and generally range from $1,000 to $25,000.

Great Western will offer two types of benefits, level and modified.

With a modified benefit, the policy will need to reach its two-year mark before the full death benefit is available. That sounds a little steep, but if the policyholder dies before the two years, the number of premiums paid will be returned along with an agreed-upon percentage.

Level benefits will keep the same life insurance death benefit amount no matter when the policyholder dies. It’s also less expensive.

In addition to the two types of benefits you can get, you’ll also have to look at what plan types would be best for you: simplified issue final expense insurance and guaranteed issue final expense insurance.

If you compare them with some of their competitors, Great Western has better rates for those who are a little older. Looking at Great Western’s guaranteed issue rate sheet, the numbers were noticeably different for those in their 40s.

Compare Quotes From Top Companies and Save

 Secured with SHA-256 Encryption

Great Western’s Simplified Qualifying Process 

One of the things that makes Great Western’s final expense insurance coverage stand out is that it offers two whole life plans to make qualifying as uncomplicated and straightforward as possible. These plans are assurance plus and guaranteed assurance.

Assurance plus was created for individuals who are in good health and looking for additional value.  It asks you to answer three (four in Florida) simple health questions.  If you are able to answer “no” to each one, you will qualify for a 25% increase of the full-death benefit starting on day one with no required medical exam.

Additionally, the accelerated death benefit rider is included at no additional cost. And for a mere $1 a month, you can provide protection for your family with the dependent child and grandchild rider. This one-time benefit will pay $2,500 on the first death of a dependent child or grandchild.

Guaranteed assurance provides coverage with no underwriting required and no health questions to answer. Here’s how the coverage plan works:

• If at any time an accidental death occurs as defined in the policy, the full death benefit will be paid.
• If a death occurs in the first two policy years, and is not accidental, the benefit paid will be 110% of the premiums paid to date.
• After the first two policy years, regardless of how the death occurs, the full death benefit is paid.

Assurance Plus

Assurance Plus is a good choice if you’re in good health. You’ll automatically have the accelerated death benefit rider in the package. It also gives the policyholder a 25 percent death benefit increase if you answer a few health questions and the ability to access some of your funds to pay for medical expenses.

Assurance Plus usually has a simple underwriting process. Of course, this also depends on some of your answers to their health questions but generally, it’s pretty quick.

Guaranteed Assurance

This plan would be better if you have or had some serious health conditions. With this plan, you get that guaranteed life insurance plan that a lot of people search for who are afraid that their lifestyle or health issues will prevent them from getting coverage. There is no underwriting process for this, and your death premiums have a modified benefit.

Here are some of the details:

• It covers accidental death even in the first two years of the policy.
• If a non-accidental death occurs during the first two years, the benefit given will be 110 percent of the premiums to date.
• After the full two years, the full amount of the policy is paid.

The downfall of this option is the premiums are higher than the simplified issue.

Now, let’s discuss Great Western’s burial insurance.

A little different from maybe AARP’s burial insurance or AARP’s final expense insurance, Great Western offers a type of burial insurance to its customers to cover the policyholder’s funeral or cremation. So, for example, if you’re looking into life insurance for dialysis patients, this is the type of coverage for you.

Preneed Insurance

Preneed Insurance is a type of permanent insurance that you’ll purchase specifically through the funeral home of your choice. Typically you’ll be helped by someone with a preneed funeral insurance license, which allows them to offer you funeral and burial insurance. (This means if you’re looking into final expense insurance jobs, it will be a little bit of work.)

You would meet with the funeral home director, who would estimate the cost of the funeral. This rate will never change regardless of if their rates change over time.

Great Western may not be part of the top preneed insurance companies, but they do give them a run for their money.

Something that also makes them unique is their two preneed insurance plans: Voyage and Course. Great Western Insurance’s Voyage policy is designed to credit either a face amount or premiums paid as a death benefit (whichever is higher). The Course plan pays a growth rate to the face amount of the policy.

They will provide you with some preneed funeral companies to choose from.

Lastly, you’ll want to note what is called knockout questions, which basically ask about your health. Here’s an example of what you can expect.

• What is the proposed insured’s height and weight?
• Are you currently: hospitalized, confined to a bed or nursing facility, using oxygen equipment to assist in breathing, or receiving Hospice Care?
• Have you been diagnosed by a member of the medical profession with diabetes prior to age 30 or have you ever been treated by a member of the medical profession for: insulin shock, diabetic coma, retinopathy, or diabetic neuropathy?
• Within the past 10 years, have you been convicted of a felony or are you currently on parole or on probation?
• Have you been declined or postponed for life or health insurance in the past two years?
• Within the past 12 months, have you used any nicotine-based products, any form of electronic cigarette (including nicotine-free electronic cigarettes), or marijuana?
• Have you applied for life insurance with any other insurance companies in the last two years?

Now, let’s talk about Great Western’s life insurance riders.

Life Insurance Riders

Based on their website, the company does not offer too many riders, but they do offer their customers some options.

Accelerated Death Benefit

This rider allows you access to some of your funds to pay for your medical bills due to a chronic or terminal illness.

Dependent Child and Grandchild

If you choose this rider, you’ll get $2,500 with the death of the first dependent child or grandchild. So let’s compare.

Great Western Life Insurance – Preneed Funeral vs Final Expense Insurance

If you’re having trouble deciding, you can always give the company a call.

Compare Quotes From Top Companies and Save

 Secured with SHA-256 Encryption

How to Get a Quote Online With Great Western

A lot of people struggle with how to get the cheapest life insurance quotes online but nowadays, getting one online is the best way to get life insurance quotes. With Great Western, it’s pretty straightforward. A great perk is you can get an instant online life insurance quote right on the product page.

Go to Great Western’s home page. Review the homepage to get a little familiar with the website. From the homepage, hover over the products tab and select the product you want a quote for. For this example, we’ll be looking at final expense insurance. Click the final expense option to get to the next screen.

Click the get your free quote button. You’ll find the button In the “Request a Free Quote” box.

Get your personal information ready for the next step.

Fill in the necessary information. This is where you’ll fill out the information such as your name and state you reside. Be sure to enter your information clearly and correctly to get a proper quote.

Click “Get Your Free Quote.” From here, you’ll be taken to your quote. If you have any additional questions, reach out to the company. You can find Great Western insurance phone number by clicking the “Contact Us” option at the bottom of this screen. If you would rather talk to an agent, there is an option on the product page to find an agent near you.

Simply fill in the requested information and give them a call. This can be helpful if you have some questions that you can’t find on the site or if you would just like to ask them about their company.

Canceling Your Life Insurance Policy

There are times where you may purchase life insurance and then wonder, “Can I cancel my life insurance policy?”. The answer is yes, but you may get a couple of fees. It may differ from company to company so it would be in your best interest to ask the company directly what some of their cancellation terms are.

Be sure to review the cancellation policy as well when choosing your life insurer.

How to Cancel

You can’t cancel your policy on the Great Western website. The cancellation process will depend on which policy you chose.

When you are submitting your cancellation for a preneed policy, whom you need to contact will depend on if it was submitted on or after November 1, 2019:

• For preneed policies submitted before November 1, 2019 – 866-689-1401
• For preneed policies submitted on or after November 1, 2019 – 800-995-9010

For final expense policies, you’ll need to submit a written request and submit it by fax, mail, or email:

• Fax – 402-496-8199
• Mail – P.O. Box 14410, Des Moines, IA 50306-3410
• Email (PDF files only) – [email protected]

You can also call 1-800-733-5454 to stop having the funds drafted from your account while you’re waiting for the cancellation process to be completed.

Compare Quotes From Top Companies and Save

 Secured with SHA-256 Encryption

How to Make a Claim With Great Western

It looks like the best way to file a Great Western insurance company claim is just to call the Great Western life insurance customer service phone number and speak with a representative. If you have preneed insurance, the funeral home can help you take care of the claims process.

Otherwise, you can find more information and some of the forms that you’ll need to fill out under the “policyholders” tab.

They also offer a free downloadable checklist for their customers.

When you click on “Find Forms,” they tell you about the forms that you’ll need to fill out. It goes over the paperwork you’ll need to collect such as providing cemetery deed or proof of ownership, copy of a birth certificate, copy of the Social Security card, and property deeds.

When you call the company to make your claim, some things you may want to ask are how long the claims process takes, especially if you have to gather almost all of the policyholder’s personal information.

Great Western’s Customer Experience

How does Great Western’s customer service measure up? For a company that may not be so well-known, they aren’t doing too badly, and it seems as if they are continuing to attempt to improve.

Some of their best customer service reviews are regarding the service they are getting from the employees. Some of the worst customer experience reviews seem to all follow the same patterns.

A lot of the customers were complaining about their payments not being received, their payment being taken out too many times, or their death benefit not being paid out. With that being said, a lot of the people do come back to say that their issue was resolved quickly. This does say a lot about the company.

Great Western received a B+ and an average two-star customer review rating from the BBB.

The company has also received a total of eight complaints on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) website regarding their life products. So overall, Great Western comes across as a company that does care about their customers.

Great Western’s Programs

Something that stands out about Great Western is their education center. From their home page, select their “Education Center” tab and it’ll take you to their page that allows you to learn a lot about their processes. They also have information about handling grief.

Great Western uses tools to go over the basics of life insurance. They have examples such as how to plan a funeral, differences between types of life insurance, information about preneed insurance, and what makes the best final expense insurance plan.

If you’re struggling with planning a funeral, they have some information about that as well.

You can view the step-by-step information on how to plan a funeral, average costs of a funeral, or how to preplan a cremation service. The part about cremation is very interesting because you don’t normally see information about cremation services.

Lastly, one of the important things that they offer is information on grief and how to handle it.

Offering grief support is huge because it’s very important to know how to deal with the loss of a loved one properly. There is information showing how to properly display how you would like to be remembered as well. There is also a checklist of sorts to see if you may need grief counseling. Great Western even has an option to find grief support near you.

Compare Quotes From Top Companies and Save

 Secured with SHA-256 Encryption

Great Western’s Ratings

Great Western can also be found using the names Great Western Company, Great Western Company Insurance Company, and Great Western Life Insurance Company. They may not be as advertised as much as some others, but their ratings are impressive.

A.M Best’s rating for Great Western is an A- (Excellent) rating, which is an improvement from their previous B+++ rating in 2017. Their long-term issuer credit rating is also at A-. The company shows a positive outlook and continues to improve from their previous stable verdict.

The Better Business Bureau gave them a similar rating of a strong A-.

With Great Western’s consistent improvement, they show great promise in the life insurance world and show the potential to make a bigger footprint.

Great Western’s Market Share

Wondering what Great Western’s market share looks like? It’s normal to want to see the numbers, especially for a company that seems to have such a small presence.

Their direct premiums written have drastically improved from 2016’s $194.1 million to 2018’s $227.8 million after being acquired by American Enterprise Group. The acquisition also caused Great Western’s market share to increase from .12 percent to .14 percent.

Below shows Great Western’s ranking moving from 86th to 84th in comparison with the top companies. The slight jump is attributed to the acquisition by American Enterprise Group.

Top 10 Life Insurance Companies and American Enterprise Mutual/Great Western by Market Share (NAIC)

Great Western’s group life direct premiums for 2019 came in at a strong $142 million with total premiums at $202 million. These numbers show the small company has been on a bit of a rollercoaster the past four years.

From these numbers, we can tell that the company is continuously improving.

Great Western in the Community

Great Western Insurance doesn’t seem to have a very large community presence. Based on their website, they do offer a lot for their funeral partners and focus a lot on the care of their customers.

They work with third-party vendors to provide an aftercare program in which grief counseling is offered to the families that do business with their funeral partners. Their goal by doing this is to connect with the families they work with. Great Western Insurance promotes that funeral company and sends out a newsletter to the families to help promote both parties.

Besides that, there aren’t too many more details about the company’s community outreach.

Great Western’s Employees

The employees’ average reviews total three stars with middle-of-the-road reviews. The employees state that since the company has been bought out, everything has changed, and it’s not as great of a place to work. Many people are worried about their jobs being secure or afraid to say the wrong thing.

Others aren’t happy with the management and the lack of growth opportunities presented. Some suspect that they aren’t fairly paid and don’t care about the job that much.

In retrospect, some people are satisfied with where they are. The main pros given were good retirement plans and great commissions offered.

Pros & Cons of Great Western Life Insurance

Some of the things you would want to look at with any life insurance company are the pros and cons of the life insurance company. With Great Western, here are some key elements you should take into consideration.

Pros of Great Western Life Insurance

Getting started with the pros, there are quite a few positives that we can take away:

• You get the big company feel from a smaller, more personal company
• Stable financial ratings
• Plenty of information and resource avenues if you are unsure which policy is right for you
• Grief support
• Security of knowing your funeral home and burial wishes are taken care of with rates that will never change
• Plenty of options for retirement

In addition to these funeral expenses and plans, something that you should consider is the fact that they have great annuities that can help you with retirement. Be sure to ask about those, especially if you are close to retirement and are shopping for life insurance.

Cons of Great Western Life Insurance

With every company, there are some cons.

• The big company feel can come at a big company cost
• Preneed can eliminate the ability for your family to pay your additional expenses if needed
• The focus appears to be mainly for the older crowd, with not much focus on the younger group
• No easy-to-use app
• Not very “up with the times” or updated, so they are not as well-known. This means a lot of people may not trust them as much as they would a more well-known company

With a small personal company, you get the risk of them not being as well-known so you may not trust them as much as you would a company that you see ads or commercials for often. This does not mean they aren’t legitimate. It just makes some people a little wary. With how things are nowadays, they could use a little revamping in the publicity area to get the word out there about their programs and to get people interested.

Compare Quotes From Top Companies and Save

 Secured with SHA-256 Encryption

Great Western Life Insurance: The Bottom Line

So is Great Western worth it?

You get all the resources of a big company and all the comfort of a small company. Great Western has a very stable outlook with good customer service reviews. When looking at whole life insurance and burial and final expense coverage with Great Western, you do get what you pay for.

If you’re unsure what you may need for a funeral, Great Western provides you with all the information you need to get the funeral and burial you desire. Their burial and funeral insurance will be a little different than its competitors such as Mutual of Omaha’s burial insurance or Globe Life’s burial insurance. Since they used to be strictly a funeral company, what they offer is more than likely a little more personable.

They also have plenty of avenues to give you additional information on normal life insurance questions.

Worried about your loved ones? Great Western even shows you nearby locations for grief counseling so your loved ones can get the help they need.

The company is a little bit behind with the times, however. They don’t have an app or many commercials to appeal to a younger crowd or get their information out there. Regardless, their numbers say they are doing just fine without it.

Now that you’ve finished this Great Western life insurance review, get your FREE ife insurance quote to get started.

Compare Quotes From Top Companies and Save

 Secured with SHA-256 Encryption