Fabric Life Insurance Review | Lowest Rates w/Medical Exam

Fabric Insurance recently entered the life insurance space by offering both term life insurance policies and accidental death insurance. Fabric operates as an online-first business and offers a customer service team of insurance agents who have received outstanding reviews for their prompt and professional insurance advice. Fabric has a core term life insurance product offering called Premium. To remain competitive in the online term life insurance market, Fabric keeps the rates on this product in line with competitors. Related:

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Fabric Term Life Insurance

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Fabric’s term life insurance, Fabric Premium, has available term lengths of 10, 15 or 20 years in length. The insurance policy face values start with a minimum of $100,000 and a maximum of $5,000,000, increasing in increments of $50,000. Fabric offers these term policies in nearly every state except California, Montana or New York.

Fabric’s Application Process

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As is customary with insurance, Fabric’s Premium product (term life insurance), will most likely have a requirement to be underwritten based on your medical condition and lifestyle choices. Despite this screening, during the Fabric term life insurance application process, depending on the policy amount and answers to your health questions, you may qualify for accelerated underwriting. For this to occur, policies with up to $1,000,000 in coverage may have the ability to receive no exam coverage. To do this, Fabric first determines your eligibility for skipping this screening criteria by using data analytics to assess the risk of insuring you as a customer. After this automated process completes, a team of underwriters reviews the application and makes the decision if your application can forego having a medical exam. Understandably, this can expedite the insurance underwriting process and provide for a quick and speedy application and insurance underwriting. When receiving an offer from Fabric for coverage, applicants can choose to amend their coverage amounts and term lengths prior to purchasing (without additional underwriting or waiting for another application). This lets you view multiple combinations and options to find a premium that best fits your budget and needs. For the time being, it does not appear you have the option to increase your current policy face value once underwritten. If you seek to increase the face value of your policy, you must instead go through the screening process again. Conversely, you have the option of reducing your coverage at any point as your unique needs and circumstances may change with time. Fabric built a feature so you can share your term life insurance policy details with your beneficiary directly, allowing for easier financial planning.  And in the same vein, Fabric also offers free online wills and a free place for couples to sync up their family’s finances. Offering this holistic suite of services demonstrates that, compared to other companies that sell insurance, Fabric takes a broader approach to your family’s financial wellbeing. As a final note for Fabric’s term life insurance product, because Vantis Life underwrites the policy, you have the option to convert it from term to whole life insurance during the covered term without taking a medical exam.

Fabric’s Financial Picture and Customer Ratings

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Fabric boasts an “A” (EXCELLENT) Financial Strength rating from A.M. Best.  This indicates a strong financial position and should not serve as a deterrent toward individuals seeking life insurance policies through Fabric. As mentioned previously, because Vantis Life Insurance Company (wholly owned by Penn Mutual, the second oldest mutual life insurance underwriter in the U.S.) underwrites the policies, Fabric possesses sound financial cushion. As a reminder, financial strength should serve as an important determinant when choosing an insurer because it indicates how well an insurer can pay claims. Because life insurance claims might not occur until decades in the future, this rating serves as an absolute differentiator if all else appears equal for term life insurance policies. Regarding customer satisfaction ratings, Fabric boasts an excellent track record:

• The Better Business Bureau has accredited Fabric with a grade of A+
• As a company, Fabric has received almost 1,300 reviews on TrustPilot, 97% of which are four and five stars (as of the writing of this review)

How Much Does Fabric Life Insurance Cost?

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In truth, as with all insurance policies, the cost of Fabric Premium depends on a number of factors related to your health, lifestyle, and age (more factors discussed in detail below).  Term life insurance policies commonly have medically underwritten requirements, therefore rates vary. In fact, the rate offered uniquely reflects your age, health, lifestyle, occupation and hobbies (especially those dangerous ones like base-jumping, skydiving, scuba diving below 100 feet, etc.), as well as where you live. As an example, Fabric might offer a 35-year old nonsmoking female living in Illinois a $250,000, 20-year term life policy for about $15 a month. As a broader consideration of life insurance policies, please decide if you think term life insurance is worth it.

What Can I Do to Get a Low Rate?

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For Fabric Premium, underwriters assess the following factors which you provide during your initial application submitted through the site:

• Age. Age often represents the single largest risk factor affecting the premium quoted to you for term life insurance.  It represents the greatest indicator of probability of death, with older individuals more likely to pass away than those who are younger, all else being equal.  Therefore, young, healthy applicants tend to pay lower premiums.
• Build. The relationship between height and weight (often measured by use of the Body Mass Index, commonly referred to as BMI), demonstrates one of the more basic determinants for assessing likelihood of death.  All things being equal, higher BMI numbers (i.e., in obese classification) represent higher risk of health issues and therefore higher mortality rates. Because of this, premiums increase for these higher readings.
• Tobacco use. To have any chance at reaching Fabric’s Ultra Select rate class, you need to avoid all forms of tobacco use.  This represents a significant risk factor because of the conscious decision to use a product solely meant to harm your health.
• Driving history. Demonstrating a safe driving history will show a lower insurability risk and therefore assist you toward achieving a lower term life premium.  This entails having a recent driving record free of moving violations, DUIs and reckless driving.
• Health/physical condition. The insurer records common health measurements like cholesterol, blood pressure, BMI (i.e., build from above) and family medical history.  This information leads to insurers usually charges higher rates when the presence of a personal or family history of cardiovascular disease, melanoma, cancer, strokes, diabetes or some chronic medical condition exist. Those in good health and of a young age most likely also enroll in high deductible health plans with ready access to health savings accounts because of their lesser healthcare needs and desire for reaching financial independence through saving tax free.
• Occupation. Some jobs pose more risk than others.  While debate might exist about how healthy sedentary desk work is for workers in the long-term, the risks of this line of work represent far safer occupations than, say, a firefighter or police officer.  Both of these occupations routinely put the insured in harm’s way. All things equal: people with dangerous occupation may pay higher premiums.
• Hazardous lifestyle. Do you like bungee jumping? Skydiving? Deepwater scuba diving? Base jumping?  While certainly fun activities for adrenaline junkies, these all represent far higher risks for insuring you.  Insurance companies favor applicants with low-risk lifestyles and hobbies. That means less tightrope walking and more knitting.  Less archery and more scrapbooking. If adrenaline is your addiction, you will likely face higher rates.
• Alcohol and drug use. Stated simply, these pose added risks to insure you because of the potentially reckless behavior they can induce.  To receive the best rates, you will need to show you have no history of alcohol or drug abuse nor related treatment within the past 10 years.

Below represents the major need-to-know facts about Fabric:

• Online application and policy origination process with potential for medical examination
• A rated financial strength
• No commissioned sales agents
• Sells term life insurance (Fabric Premium)
• Coverage up to $5,000,000
• 10, 15 and 20 year terms available
• Premium covers any age while Instant covers up to age 60 (if enrolled between ages 25 and 50)

Related: 8 Best Ways to Invest a Lump Sum Life Insurance Payout

How Fabric Compares

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See how Fabric compares against the other agencies in the online life insurance market.  Have a look at each review performed by this site by clicking on the links below to learn which might lead to you finding your best policy.