Goosehead Insurance is a broker that works with various insurance companies to provide consumers with options tailored to their needs. While Goosehead's primary focus is on home, condo, auto, and renters insurance, it can also help with life insurance.
Business Insider compared Goosehead's offerings to the best life insurance companies and found it to lag behind its competitors.
Goosehead Life Insurance Review
Goosehead Life Insurance is not an insurance provider, so it does not underwrite insurance products. Instead, the company represents insurance companies selling as a third party. As a broker, Goosehead Insurance is not beholden to a single carrier, so agents work on your behalf to find the best policy for you. The company offers a wide range of insurance products such as auto, home, renters, and condo insurance. It also offers some life insurance.
However, when it comes to life insurance, Goosehead's offerings are limited. Based on what we know about its life insurance partners, seniors looking for a small death benefit may appreciate the partnership and options Goosehead offers. However, clients looking for more considerable death benefits and whole policies with living benefits may not find suitable options with Goosehead.
It's also worth mentioning that an abundance of customer reviews mention that Goosehead agents are hard to reach once you purchase your policy.
Ultimately, life insurance isn't Goosehead's forte. If you're in the market for auto, home, renters, or condo insurance, it may be worth your time to request a quote. However, if you're buying life insurance, using Goosehead may be more inconvenient than applying directly with an insurance provider.
Goosehead Life Insurance Pros and Cons
Goosehead Life Insurance Pros
- Can provide support dealing with insurance providers
Goosehead Life Insurance Cons
- Limited life insurance options
- Potential service costs in addition to insurance premiums
Goosehead Life Insurance Plans Available
Goosehead makes it simple to review your options, so you know what's available and that you're getting the best price possible. The company provides home, auto, and other insurance products, including life insurance. These products are provided through a network of brokers. Its most prominent partners are Ethos Life Insurance and Insurance Designers of Dallas.
Ethos Life Insurance Policies
As a Goosehead Insurance partner, Ethos Life offers consumers term life insurance and whole life insurance products. Term life insurance is set for a predetermined term of your choosing. In other words, if anything happens to the policyholder within the term, the beneficiary is eligible for a death benefit payout. However, if the buyer dies outside the agreed-upon term, the beneficiary will not receive anything. Some term policies can be renewed or converted to whole life policies.
Whole life insurance is another option covering the policyholder for life. Any permanent life insurance, such as whole life, comes at a higher cost. However, the benefit does not expire.
Term life insurance
- Coverage from $20,000 to $2 million
- Various term lengths, including 10, 15, 20, and 30-year terms
- Available for consumers between the ages of 20 and 65
- Medical exams are not required for most policies
- Applications are completed online
- 30-day money-back guarantee with no cancellation fees
- Policies are guaranteed renewable until age 95 without underwriting
- Each renewal will reduce coverage and increase premiums
- Accelerated death benefits are not available; death benefits only
Whole life insurance
- Coverage from $1,000 to $30,000
- The rate remains fixed over time and doesn't change
- No medical exam, just health questions to answer
- The policy remains in effect as long as you make payments
- If you reach age 100, you'll no longer be required to make payments, and beneficiaries will still receive the death benefit
- Guaranteed level premiums
- Based on health status and state eligibility, benefits can start immediately or within two to three years
- Accidental deaths are covered right away
- Approval is guaranteed for buyers between the ages of 66 and 85
Insurance Designers of Dallas
Insurance Designers of Dallas is another company partnered with Goosehead. Like Ethos, IDD does not offer its own insurance policies. Instead, it connects business clients with its life insurance partners.
IDD has connections with 25 life insurance providers including some major life insurance providers like New York Life, Mutual of Omaha, and MassMutual. Through these partnerships, IDD offers various policies including:
- Term Life
- Universal Life and Survivor Universal Life
- Indexed Universal Life and Survivor Indexed Universal Life
- Variable Universal Life
- Whole Life
Additional Coverage Options from Goosehead Insurance
Goosehead Life Insurance agents may discuss specific riders for your policy. A rider is an optional add-on to boost your coverage or add particular benefits to your policy. An example would be adding a term booster to a whole life policy. You'd have a whole life policy locked in, but your death benefit would be higher for a given term.
Ethos Life Insurance, one of the Goosehead partners, offers two extra riders with its term life insurance:
- Guaranteed renewable: The insurer cannot drop the insured person if they pay scheduled premiums. This rider does not guarantee premiums or a set coverage limit.
- Guaranteed level premiums: A term policy's premium will stay the same throughout the policy. This rider wouldn't apply if the buyer renewed the policy.
Eligible Ethos policyholders also get free will and estate planning services to help them pass on assets, choose guardians for their children, and protect their families. Estate planning tools are available with the purchase of an eligible policy.
You can ask an agent at Goosehead about all potential riders available if you're interested in getting a life insurance policy.
Goosehead Life Insurance Cost
Your life insurance rates, or how much you pay per month, will vary based on the type of policy you purchase, the coverage amount, age, and health history. Goosehead quotes must be obtained by an agent.
However, we can use Ethos' instant life insurance quote tool to see what a policy may cost. We obtained quotes for someone in excellent health taking out a $500,000, 20-year policy. For comparison, we also included the average cost for the same policy, according to data from Policygenius.
| Age | Sex | Ethos Quotes | Average Cost |
| 20 | Female | $16-$30 | $23 |
| 20 | Male | $21-$39 | $30 |
| 30 | Female | $17-$31 | $23 |
| 30 | Male | $23-$40 | $29 |
| 40 | Female | $29-$50 | $35 |
| 40 | Male | $38-$69 | $43 |
| 50 | Female | $70-$119 | $78 |
| 50 | Male | $89-$158 | $102 |
| 60 | Female | $186-$342 | $194 |
| 60 | Male | $298-$477 | $269 |
How to File a Claim With Goosehead Life Insurance
If you have a life insurance policy from Goosehead and need to file a claim, the company has a dedicated Claims Report Line at 866-260-5151.
Goosehead agents are available Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., across U.S. time zones. You can also fill out a form on the company's Contact Us page.
Goosehead Life Insurance Customer Reviews and Ratings
Goosehead has mixed reviews online, receiving an average of 3.6 stars out of five on Yelp and 1.64 stars on its Better Business Bureau page. Reviewers mentioned unresponsive and misleading brokers and problems renewing insurance policies. It's worth mentioning that these reviews concern Goosehead as a whole, not just its life insurance services.
Since Goosehead is not an insurance provider, it doesn't have the usual third party ratings like the Company Complaint Index rating from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners or a customer satisfaction rating from JD Power.
Goosehead Life Insurance FAQ
Goosehead Insurance does not offer its own life insurance policies. Instead, it's a broker, connecting customers to the appropriate insurance company based on their needs.
Goosehead Insurance partners with more than 140 insurance providers to offer various insurance products to consumers. The company has between 501 and 1,000 employees, according to Indeed. However, it only partners with two companies, one being another broker, for life insurance.
Goosehead Insurance does not offer its own life insurance riders, but its partner Ethos offers some life insurance riders including will and estate planning services.
Why You Should Trust Us: How We Reviewed Goosehead Life Insurance
As Goosehead is not an insurance provider, we instead looked at the partners it works with and their offerings to get an idea of what you'll find working with a Goosehead agent. We also looked at customer reviews to see how satisfied previous customers were with their service.
You can read more about how Business Insider reviews life insurance.
