6 things to know about Haven Life

Haven Life is one of a new breed of life insurance players removing the friction from the life insurance shopping process. With Haven, you do everything online — from getting a quote to e-signing your documents.

Here’s what you need to know about Haven Life

Buying life insurance is something so many of us know we need to do, but we just don’t get around to it. That’s partly because the traditional life insurance thing is cumbersome.

You used to have to sit down with an agent — either in your home or on the phone — and answer questions about your general health. Then you had to agree to submit to a medical exam.

Once the exam was scheduled, you had to get ready to be poked and prodded by needles. Then, you had to wait for weeks for the lab results to come back and the policy to be written.

But Haven Life has re-imagined the whole idea of buying life insurance. Here’s what you need to know before you get a quote:

Table of contents

1. Getting a quote online
2. Coverage limits
3. Term life calculator
4. No medical exam policies
5. A.M. Best rating
6. Haven Life Plus

1. You can get a quote online and don’t ever have to talk to an agent

Haven Life has completely automated the process for buying life insurance. There’s no old-school agent you have to deal with at any step of the process. From getting a quote to finalizing your coverage, it’s all done online from any smartphone or computer.

Here are a few more ways Haven has simplified the shopping process and made it more customer-friendly:

• Paperless processing
• All policies sold commission-free
• Only sells term life insurance — no whole life
• Level premiums mean you pay the same amount each month and it never goes up

If you have any questions during the application process, you can stop at any time and get help in several ways: via chat, phone (1-855-744-2836) or email ([email protected]).

2. You can get up to $3 million in coverage

If you’re a U.S. citizen under age 60, you can get up to $3,000,000 in term life insurance coverage.

However, if you’re either over 60 but younger than 64 or an eligible non-U.S. citizen, you can qualify for up to $1,000,000. Similar coverage restrictions apply if you get a no medical exam term policy — but more details on that in a moment.

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3. Haven Life’s term life calculator helps determine coverage needs

Figuring out how much life insurance you need to purchase is something that stumps a lot of people shopping for a policy.

As a general rule of thumb, money expert Clark Howard recommends buying an amount equal to 10 times your salary, before taxes.

But for an answer to the question of how much to buy that’s tailored specifically to your situation, Haven offers a term life insurance needs calculator.

When you use the calculator, you’ll be asked to input the following info:

• Gender
• Date of birth
• State of residence
• Nicotine use
• Health condition
• Annual income
• Family size
• Total amount of debt

The calculator will then kick back a recommended coverage amount for a certain term of years, along with an estimated monthly premium rate.

4. Haven Life offers no medical exam term policies

A big part of the appeal of Haven is that you don’t have to undergo a medical exam to get a term life policy.

Select qualified applicants up to age 59 can finalize coverage online without the need to have a physical exam or a blood test like you would with other insurers.

Certain candidates, however, may still need to pass medical underwriting, depending on a variety of factors.

While you can purchase up to $3 million in coverage if you medically underwrite, Haven caps its no medical exam term life policies at $1 million of coverage.

5. Haven Life is underwritten by MassMutual, an A++ rated company

When it comes to selecting a life insurance company, strength and financial stability are very important. You want to be sure the company you’re buying a policy from will be around for a long time to come.

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That’s because if you die while the policy is in force, you have to know that the insurance company will be financially solvent and around to pay on your claim.

Of course, nobody can see the future — but we have the next best thing in A.M. Best, a credit rating company that focuses on the insurance industry. Using a proprietary system, A.M. Best grades insurance companies on a scale from A++ to F.

Haven Life policies are underwritten by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), a company that’s been around for 160 years and gets an A++ from A.M. Best. With that kind of history and financial strength, you can rest assured that Haven Life and MassMutual will be around to pay on claims should you die prematurely.

Remember, getting a grade of A++ is as much assurance that a company will stand the test of time as you can possibly get.

6. Haven Life Plus offers free add-on services on your policy

When you get a term life policy from Haven, you get so much more than just insurance to provide for your beneficiaries if you die. You also get a suite of free additional offerings called Haven Life Plus.

Haven Life Plus is an insurance rider that sits on top of your existing policy. It offers a broad range of freebie perks valued at more than $300. These perks touch on estate planning, on-demand health services and emergency planning, among other things:

• Will creation from Trust & Will ($129 value)*
• On-demand fitness app Aaptiv ($99 value)
• Timeshifter app that helps fight jet lag ($24.99 value)
• Free estate planning/secure online vault from LifeSite ($80 value)
• 15% discount on any single CVS MinuteClinic service

* Offer void in North Carolina

The Haven Life Plus rider is not available in Florida, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota and Washington.

Final thought

Having a life insurance policy in place is important if you have a family or spouse that depends on your paycheck. If you die prematurely, they’ll face a tremendous struggle to replace your income. That’s why life insurance offers such great peace of mind.

But times are changing and the modern life insurance customer wants a simplified shopping process. Haven Life delivers that hands down. And, Haven bolsters its offerings with a nice suite of freebies and perks.

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Still not sure you need a policy? Read our piece titled “What is term life insurance and should I buy it?” for the final word.

Then when you’re ready to get shopping, be sure to check out our guides on how to buy term life insurance and the best life insurance companies before you make up your mind.

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4 things to know before you buy renters insurance

Looking for the best renters insurance? Fortunately, renters insurance is an incredibly cheap policy to buy and there are several insurers that industry surveys show do a good job pleasing customers.

In this article, we’ll explain what a renters insurance policy covers and who needs it. We’ll also cover which companies get high marks and how to identify the best renters insurance companies on your own.

Understanding renters insurance

When you’re a renter, there’s a misconception that your landlord’s home insurance policy also covers your personal property. Unfortunately, that’s usually not the case.

“In general, landlords are not responsible for your belongings,” money expert Clark Howard says. “The sole exception is in the case of ‘negligence’ on the part of the landlord, which is very hard to prove in a court of law. So you’re on the hook if your belongings are stolen, damaged or destroyed in a fire. That’s where renters insurance comes in.”

Table of contents

1. What is renters insurance?

Renters insurance is an insurance policy offered by both mainstream insurance companies and newer fintech players to people who don’t own their home. The policy protects you and your belongings against perils such as:

• Theft
• Water damage
• Vandalism
• Fire
• Smoke
• Lightning

What does a renters insurance policy consist of?

A typical renters insurance policy has several main categories of coverage. These include:

• Personal property
• Temporary living expenses
• Personal liability
• Medical bills

Personal property coverage

Like its name suggests, personal property coverage provides protection for what you own: Furniture, clothing, electronics, etc.

However, it usually excludes valuables like fine art and jewelry. For those items, you’ll need to purchase an additional rider. Ditto for portable electronics that are valued at more than $1,500.

“Be certain that your policy includes replacement value coverage. That will help avoid protracted battles over the price of depreciating assets like old electronics,” Clark says. “You’ll just get one lump payout to replace your items rather than having to haggle over the depreciated value of a three-year-old TV.”

Temporary living expenses

Also called relocation assistance or loss of use coverage, this part of your policy pays to put you up in a hotel if your apartment become uninhabitable because of something like a fire or water damage.

Personal liability

Personal liability coverage protects you if someone is injured on your property and decides to sue you.

This coverage includes a certain dollar amount that your insurer will pay toward legal fees, medical bills or damages in the case of a lawsuit.

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Your landlord may have a specific amount of personal liability coverage they require you to carry.

Medical payments

While personal liability coverage shields you if someone is hurt on your property, the medical payments part of your renters insurance policy will pick up small medical bills for whoever is hurt.

2. How much does renters insurance cost?

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners says you should expect to pay somewhere between $15 and $30 a month based on where you live, how large of an apartment you rent and how valuable your possessions are.

To put that to the test, we pulled online quotes for renters insurance policies from three competitors — two traditional insurance companies (Allstate, Farmers) and one fintech startup (Lemonade).

All quotes below are based on $20,000 worth of personal property coverage, $100,000 in personal liability, $1,000 in medical payments and between $4,000 to $6,000 in loss of use on a townhome rental in metro Atlanta.

Carrier Monthly premium Allstate $24.00 Farmers $23.19 Lemonade $11.00

3. Who needs renters insurance?

Renters insurance is required by most large property managers who have multiple complexes. If you’re renting from a private landlord, a policy may not be required — but it’s still a good idea to have one.

There’s one other unique category of renter who needs insurance: College students who live in off-campus housing.

Most college kids living in a dorm or nearby campus housing will be covered at around 10% of a parent’s home insurance policy. So if the parent has personal property coverage of $100,000, the student will get coverage of $10,000 for their belongings in a dorm. But that’s not the case if the student lives off-campus. So these students need a policy of their own.

Meanwhile, if you’re living with roommates, it’s important to know that renters insurance does not cover roommates unless they’re specifically named on the policy. However, adding a roommate to your policy is not advisable; they need to get their own policy.

If they don’t have their own policy and they’re named on yours, any claims that roommate makes on the policy will go on your Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange (C.L.U.E.) report, not theirs.

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Insurers use the C.L.U.E. report to get a read on an individual’s risk and to price insurance policies of all kinds accordingly. The more negative info on it, the higher your rates will be in other areas of your insurance life.

4. Best renters insurance companies

Each year, Clark watches J.D. Power’s annual home insurance tally closely. This survey of more than 140,000 people helps him understand who’s doing a good job service policy holders with the best renters insurance coverage.

From June-July 2018, J.D. Power asked renters to rate their insurers on six criteria:

• Overall satisfaction
• Policy offerings
• Price
• Billing process and policy information
• Interaction
• Claims

The very top performer was USAA, which received the highest possible marks on all six measures and scored 885 on a 1,000-point scale. But since USAA is only available to military personnel and their families, it’s not included in the formal rankings.

Therefore, the top performers are as follows:

J.D. Power best renters insurance companies

Carrier Score on a 1,000-point scale

• Auto Club of Southern California Insurance Group
• Erie Insurance

• 845
• 842

The industry average on the J.D. Power scale is 839. Only one other insurer, State Farm, beat that average with an 840 score.

Meanwhile, all the other insurers on the tally performed below the industry average for the renters insurance customer experience:

• Allstate – 832
• The Hartford – 831
• American Family – 829
• Farmers – 825
• Travelers – 820
• CSAA Insurance Group – 819
• Nationwide – 816
• Liberty Mutual – 811
• MetLife – 800
• Safeco – 800

Final thought

Renters insurance is so cheap and easy to obtain. In fact, you could argue that it’s more expensive not to have it in the event something goes wrong than it is to just buy a policy!

“It’s common that renters don’t want to shell out for it because they think their belongings aren’t that valuable,” Clark says. “But if your belongings are stolen, damaged or destroyed, do you have enough money to cover that expense of replacement? Many people don’t. That’s why this kind of insurance is advisable.”

When you’re looking for the best renters insurance policy, there’s a simple two-step process you should follow:

1. Determine your coverage limits
2. Shop around for a minimum of three quotes

The first step is to figure out how much coverage you’ll need. Many companies have online calculators to help you determine the amount of coverage that makes sense for you. Allstate’s What’s Your Stuff Worth? tool is one of the more robust ones.

The second step is to shop around. One of the recommended three quotes you get should be from the same insurance carrier that writes your auto insurance policy. Here’s our list of the best auto insurance carriers.

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As a general rule, it’s smarter to get coverage on your own rather than through your apartment complex. Renters insurance is a real profit center for them and you’ll generally find better quotes when you shop away from their preferred providers.

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Best prepaid unlimited plans: Metro by T-Mobile vs. Cricket vs. Boost Mobile

Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint aren’t your only options for unlimited data plans! You may be able to get the same network coverage at a much cheaper price by switching to a prepaid carrier.

For example, MetroPCS recently changed its name to Metro by T-Mobile and introduced two new unlimited data plans.

RELATED: Best cell phone plans and deals right now

Prepaid unlimited plan comparison: Metro by T-Mobile vs. Cricket vs. Boost Mobile

The new branding makes it clear that Metro is owned by T-Mobile, but many people don’t even realize that AT&T owns Cricket Wireless and Sprint owns Boost Mobile.

You could be missing out on hundreds of dollars in savings every year by overlooking these low-cost brands! Here’s an example…

When Clark.com recently compared unlimited plans from the Big 4 wireless providers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint), we noticed that the price for a single line of service ranges from $60 to $95 per month, usually before taxes and fees.

Meanwhile, Metro, Cricket and Boost are now offering cheap unlimited plans starting in the $50-a-month range — all in.

Money expert Clark Howard says the #1 benefit of an unlimited plan is that you don’t have to worry about bill shock anymore. There are no overage charges with unlimited plans.

However, some wireless providers will slow you down if you use too much 4G LTE high-speed data or the network gets busy.

“It’s really confusing when you try to pick a cell phone plan because unlimited doesn’t mean unlimited,” Clark says. “Everybody has restrictions or gotchas, depending on what you pay per month.”

All of the plans featured in this article offer unlimited talk, text and data, but you want to pay attention to the gotchas that Clark referenced, particularly reduced data speeds during times of network congestion.

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Which prepaid unlimited data plan is best for you? Read on for our plan-by-plan comparison…

Metro by T-Mobile (MetroPCS)

Priced at $60 a month for a single line of service, Metro by T-Mobile’s more expensive unlimited plan is packed with bells and whistles including 15GB of mobile hotspot, Amazon Prime and Google One cloud storage.

Metro by T-Mobile unlimited data plans

Plan name New plan #1 New plan #2 Monthly price 

• 1 line = $50
• 2 lines = $80
• 3 lines = $110
• 4 lines = $140

• 1 line = $60
• 2 lines = $90
• 3 lines = $120
• 4 lines = $120 (promo)

Taxes and fees Included Included Network T-Mobile (Coverage map) T-Mobile (Coverage map) Mobile hotspot 5GB LTE 15GB LTE Extras Google One Amazon Prime, Google One Bring your own phone Yes (Check compatibility) Yes (Check compatibility) Fine print

• MetroPCS customers’ data is prioritized below data of some T-Mobile-branded customers at times and locations where competing network demands occurs
• Customers using >35GB/month may notice reduced speeds due to prioritization
• Video streams at 480p

UPDATED: OCTOBER 2018

Cricket Wireless 

Cricket’s cheaper unlimited plan is only $25 per line for a family of four, but it limits data speeds to 3 Mbps on AT&T’s network. With both plans, mobile hotspot is an add-on feature that gets you 10GB for an extra $10 a month.

Cricket Wireless unlimited data plans

Plan name Unlimited Unlimited Extra Monthly price

• 1 line = $55 or $50 after Auto Pay credit
• 2 lines = $80
• 3 lines = $90
• 4 lines = $100
• 5 lines = $125

• 1 line = $60 or $55 after Auto Pay credit
• 2 lines = $90
• 3 lines = $120
• 4 lines = $150
• 5 lines = $180

Taxes and fees Included Included Network AT&T (Coverage map) AT&T (Coverage map) Mobile hotspot Additional $10/month for 10GB Additional $10/month for 10GB Bring your own phone Yes (Check compatibility) Yes (Check compatibility) Fine print

• Data speed limited to a max of 3 Mbps
• Video streaming at SD quality (about 480p)
• After 22GB/line per month, customers may experience slower speeds during network congestion

• Video streaming at SD quality (about 480p)
• Cricket may slow data speeds when the network is congested

UPDATED: OCTOBER 2018

Boost Mobile 

If Sprint has good coverage in your area and you rely on mobile hotspot, Boost Mobile’s plans may be worth a closer look. The carrier often advertises special deals on its website for unlimited family plans.

Boost Mobile unlimited data plans

Plan name Unlimited Gigs Boost Unlimited Plus Ultimate Unlimited Monthly price

• 1 line = $50
• 2 lines = $80
• 3 lines = $110
• 4 lines = $140
• 5 lines = $170

• 1 line = $60
• 2 lines = $100
• 3 lines = $140
• 4 lines = $180
• 5 lines = $220

• 1 line = $80
• 2 lines = $140
• 3 lines = $200
• 4 lines = $260
• 5 lines = $320

Taxes and fees Included Included Included Network Sprint (Coverage map) Sprint (Coverage map) Sprint (Coverage map) Mobile hotspot 12GB 30GB 50GB Bring your own phone Yes (Check compatibility) Yes (Check compatibility) Yes (Check compatibility) Fine print

• Video streams at up to 480p+ resolution, music at up to 500 Kbps, streaming cloud gaming at up to 2 Mbps
• Data deprioritization applies during congestion
• Customers who use more than 35GB of data during a billing cycle will be de-prioritized during times & places where the Sprint network is constrained

• Stream HD video up to 1080p
• Data deprioritization applies during congestion
• Customers who use more than 35GB of data during a billing cycle will be de-prioritized during times & places where the Sprint network is constrained

• HD video streams up to 1080p, music up to 1.5 Mbps, gaming up to 8 Mbps
• Data deprioritization applies during congestion
• International Connect PLUS (international calling and text)
• TIDAL Premium
• Priority customer care service

UPDATED: OCTOBER 2018

NEW: What about a cheaper unlimited plan on Verizon’s network?

Visible is a new cell phone provider that’s owned by Verizon and offers a $40 per month unlimited data plan, including taxes and fees.

With Visible, download speeds are limited to 5 Mbps, but you won’t be slowed down based on your data usage — only when the network gets congested.

During early access, Visible members will also get mobile hotspot with unlimited data at up to 5 Mbps.

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To keep costs down, Visible has no physical stores. Everything is done through the app, including paying your monthly bill. Customer service is primarily available via chat, text and social media.

Anyone with an eligible iPhone (no Androids) can sign up for the service. Get the details here!

Final thought 

To choose the best prepaid unlimited plan, Clark suggests making a list of the features that really matter to you: network coverage, the most high-speed data, HD-quality video, mobile hotspot, international calling, etc.

Of course, the monthly price of your unlimited plan will go up as you add more features to the must-have list.

To compare these prepaid plans to what Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint offer, see our roundup of the unlimited plans from the Big 4 wireless providers here.

Have you found a great unlimited data plan? Tell us about it in the comments below!

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