Lincoln Heritage [Funeral Advantage, Funeral Consumer Guardian Society Reviews]
last updated on March 7, 2022Are you looking for more information on how Lincoln Heritage’s Funeral Advantage program works?
If you’re wondering how the Funeral Advantage Program (also known as the Funeral Consumer Guardian Society) program stacks up, then you’ve found the right article!
My Promise To You Today
My promise today is that you’ll accomplish the following reading this article:
- Have a better understanding of the insurance company Lincoln Heritage, and whether or not it’s a good match for your final expense insurance goals
- A fair and balanced assessment of how Lincoln Heritage’s Funeral Advantage Program works to help you better decide if it’s right for you,
- How Lincoln Heritage’s Funeral Consumer Guardian Society (FCGS) Program works, and,
- What your other options for final expense burial insurance are if you want a second opinion.
Let’s begin!
Quick Navigation Article Links
- About Lincoln Heritage
- Funeral Advantage Program Basics
- Funeral Consumer Guardian Society Basics
- Other Options
About Lincoln Heritage
Lincoln Heritage Life Insurance Company was founded by Jack Londen in 1963. With over a million policies in force, Lincoln Heritage is the leading provider of final expense insurance in the US. The company has its headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.
Final expense insurance, also known as burial or funeral insurance, is a type of whole life insurance designed to protect the policyholder’s family from financial strain after they pass.
It covers funeral or cremation expenses, but can be used also to pay off debts such as:
- medical bills,
- mortgage loans, or,
- credit card bills.
Lincoln Heritage offers only one life insurance product, Funeral Advantage, which is a whole life insurance policy designed to cover a limited set of funeral costs.
The policy offers up to $20,000 in coverage and has a cash value that grows over time. Policyholders can borrow against the cash value to cover premiums or emergency expenses.
Each Lincoln Heritage policy comes with a Funeral Consumer Guardian Society (FCGS) membership. This service helps manage funeral preferences and assist the family after the policyholder’s death.
How The Funeral Advantage Program Works
Funeral Advantage helps seniors and their loved ones plan and pay for their final wishes. The policy will pay out the death benefit to your beneficiaries upon your passing to cover for your final expenses (unless you have the modified plan which requires a waiting period).
Lincoln Heritage’s application process is very simple with no medical exam needed. If you purchase more than $20,000 in coverage, a phone interview is required as part of the application process.
2 Types Of Program Options
Depending on your health history, you can either qualify for immediate coverage or the modified plan.
Modified Plan Details
You may qualify ONLY for the modified plan if in the past two years you were diagnosed with or treated for:
- heart disease,
- coronary artery disease,
- cancer,
- lung,
- liver, or,
- kidney disease,
- Alzheimer’s disease,
- dementia or ALS,
- or any complications related to diabetes.
IMPORTANT: Modified plans have a waiting period of up to 3 years depending on your age, and SOME (not all) of these conditions may be eligible for first-day full coverage through one of our company’s life insurance products.
Knockout Health Questions
There are only a few health conditions that can prevent you completely from qualifying for Lincoln Heritage Funeral Advantage.
They include:
- testing positive for HIV,
- being diagnosed with AIDS or a terminal illness,
- being imprisoned,
- hospitalized, or,
- receiving hospice care.
NOTE: For some (not all) of the conditions above, we may be able to get you instantly approved with a no-questions asked life insurance product.
How Riders Work
In addition, Lincoln Heritage offers two optional riders: child rider and accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) rider.
Child Rider Details
The insured can purchase a child rider on their children, stepchildren, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren who are anywhere between 30 days and 18 years old.
Children have the possibility to convert their coverage into a permanent plan.
Accidental Death Benefit Rider Details
The accidental death and dismemberment rider can be purchased either in addition to life insurance or on its own, as a standalone product.
What Are The Advantages Of Lincoln Heritage’s Funeral Advantage Program?
- Lincoln Heritage is a financially strong company. It has an excellent A- rating with AM Best and a superior A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.
- Lincoln Heritage Funeral Advantage policies are available in all states except for New York.
- The Funeral Advantage coverage is available for ages 40-85.
- Lincoln Heritage policies have fixed monthly rates that don’t increase.
- Death benefits are guaranteed to never decrease, as long as you’re paying premiums.
- The policy never expires regardless of the age, under the condition that the premiums are being paid.
- Most people are able to get coverage, even with health issues. Lincoln Heritage is, therefore, a good choice for seniors who can’t qualify elsewhere.
- No medical exams are necessary. Qualification is based on your answers to a few health questions and a prescription history check.
- There is no height & weight chart.
- The application is a simple one-page document.
- The company is known for its excellent customer service.
- Funeral Advantage cash benefits are paid within 24 hours, as soon as the claim is approved.
- Lincoln Heritage offers a $100,000 additional benefit for accidental death.
What Are The Drawbacks?
- Lincoln Heritage sells only one policy and consumers have no choices other than Funeral Advantage.
- The Funeral Advantage insurance is sold only through captive agents. Because they don’t offer life insurance from any other carriers, they won’t be able to help you compare rates from multiple insurers.
- While the Funeral Advantage program is available in all states except for New York, there are some limitations depending on where you live. You won’t be able to name a funeral home as your beneficiary if you reside in Florida, Michigan, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, or West Virginia.
- Funeral Advantage life insurance is often 20%-300% more expensive than other burial insurance companies.
- If you have certain health issues, you will have to pay a higher premium. In addition, there is a minimum two-year waiting period before the death benefit can be paid. For the same health conditions, you could get a significantly lower premium without any waiting period from some other burial insurance companies.
- If you use any form of tobacco, you’ll have to pay much higher rates.
- In practice, your claim won’t be paid within 24 hours as the company promises. The claim needs to be approved first and the approval process may take time.
- Only individuals below the age of 80 can apply for coverage of up to $35,000. If you are 81-85, you are only eligible to apply for $15,000 in coverage.
NOTE: We can help solve many of these drawbacks of the Funeral Advantage program. In many cases, we have access to companies with better coverage per dollar of premium paid, and more flexibility in underwriting than what Lincoln Heritage’s Funeral Advantage Program offers.
How Does The Funeral Consumer Guardian Society Program Work?
Every Lincoln Heritage Life Insurance policy comes with a free Funeral Consumer Guardian Society (FCGS) membership. There are no direct applications for FCGS. The only way to get a membership to FCGS is to buy a Lincoln Heritage life insurance policy.
Funeral Consumer Guardian Society is an independent consumer advocacy organization. It provides professional guidance to policyholders and their families during the funeral planning process.
The objective of the service is to help the loved ones in charge of funeral arrangements cope with the funeral planning process and to help them save money on the funeral.
Besides assisting with funeral wishes and arrangements, FCGS helps family members with all aspects of funeral planning after the death of the insured, and helps shop funeral homes for the best burial services rates.
Funeral Consumer Guardian Society Basics
According to Lincoln Heritage, the FCGS service comes with a number of benefits:
- Funeral planning assistance. FCGS helps you document how you want your funeral to be carried out. You will be asked to complete paper forms to let the company know whether you want to be buried or cremated, whether you want a viewing, what color flowers do you want, what kind of music you want to be played, and other details.
- Funeral funding information. FCGS will ensure that the family member taking care of your final arrangements will receive the money needed to pay your funeral bills as quickly as possible after your passing.
- Funeral plan security service. This FCGS service ensures that your funeral plan is stored safely. Your beneficiaries are assigned a special coded ID card which allows them to consult the plan online at any time.
- Funeral plan activation help. With this benefit, your family is able to call FCGS to notify them of your passing. FCGS will then contact the funeral home, provide them with your funeral plan, and try to get discounts for your family whenever possible.
Pros Of Funeral Consumer Guardian Society
- As a member of the FCGS service, you can decide the exact type of funeral you want.
- Filling in a two-page final wishes form is fast and simple.
- Your funeral plan is kept securely on file.
- After your passing, your loved ones have access to a 24-hour toll-free service phone number that they can call in time of need.
- FCGS is known for its efficient customer service.
- FCGS compares a number of different funeral homes to find the best available rate.
- With FCGS your family members can save up to $1,800 on traditional funerals and up to $600 on cremation services.
- Funeral Consumer Guardian Society is not affiliated with any religion, funeral home, or any particular funeral approach.
- As an FCGS member, you don’t have any obligation to buy anything.
What customers are saying:
“Accident death benefits up to 100k and the FCGS funeral planning is outstanding. The FCGS even negotiates for the family so that any remaining monies go to the family. We love it. All inclusive program.”
“Lincoln Heritage handled the passing of our loved one with dignity. Everything was fulfilled just as we wanted for our loved one.”
“I wish that other companies would take note but Lincoln Heritage has the blueprint for professionalism, compassion and an all around speedy process.“
“Every time I call the home office in Phoenix, I get a live person. The premiums are average, but the added benefit of the Funeral Consumer Guardian Society makes a difference. My agent was knowledgeable and helped answer all of my questions.”
Cons Of Lincoln Heritage’s FCGS Proggram
- Lincoln Heritage final expense insurance has some of the most expensive policies on the market. The company often justifies this cost through its FCGS membership. However, all the FCGS member benefits are accessible elsewhere for free.
- There is no need to be an FCGS member to document your final wishes. You can easily do that on your own.
- Many websites, such as Dignity Planning, Do Your Own Will, or Ever Loved, for example, offer free funeral planning services.
- You can also make your own final wishes guide. If you Google “free final wishes guide,” you’ll get dozens of options. You can fill in the document, print it out, and keep it for reference.
- There’s no particular reason you should store the funeral plan with FCGS, especially knowing that it is not a confidential document. It doesn’t contain any personal information like your social security number or bank information. You can just save it on your computer and share it with your family.
- The special coded ID card is only a code your family members will get to access the funeral plan.
- The funeral funding information benefit consists of FCGS notifying Lincoln Heritage about the insured’s passing while in reality, there is no need for this intermediary service. Anyone can easily call the company on their own and inform them that their loved one passed.
- Your family can also call funeral homes on their own if they would like to know which one charges the least. Funeral homes are required to provide itemized price details so that your family members can easily compare the rates.
What customers are saying:
“They take a long time to take action in cases and when they do they break their promises.”
“Look for lower rates elsewhere. I was paying 3x as much for this company. I got insurance through a broker received the funeral planning at no-cost and can arrange a 24hr payout Total rip-off don’t buy Lincoln Heritage.”
“Made an attempt to have Lincoln Heritage Funeral Advantage. This company has a bad reputation of taking customers money and by taking out a constant amount every month when asked to cancel their policies. I had asked them to cancel my policy, but because they have knowledge of my banking account information they continue to access my account.”
“For several years now, even after responding to their letter offering me funeral services and pleading with them to stop , I do not seem to be able to “shake” off this nightmare from Funeral advantage. […] I do not want to make early funeral arrangements.”
Seeking A Second Opinion
While Lincoln Heritage’s Funeral Consumer Guardian program and Funeral Advantage Program are a good fit for some, many people find each program isn’t after completing due diligence.
So, what should you do if you’re not satisfied with what Lincoln Heritage offers?
The good news is that there are many different options for final expense life insurance readily available to you.
In fact, we here at Buy Life Insurance For Burial are Brokers. This means that we shop the most highly-rated competitive companies to find you quality final expense burial insurance at good prices.
In many instances, we can save you a tremendous amount of money, relative to what Lincoln Heritage charges.
What does this mean? This means more money in your pocket or, more coverage for each dollar you invest!
Why we can’t say with 100% certainty that we can always beat Lincoln Heritage, it’s almost close to 100% that our policy options and prices are better than what Lincoln Heritage offers.
How To Get A Free Quote
Here’s what to do to get a free quote:
Simply click the Box on the side of your screen or on the top of your screen that mentions requesting a free quote. Fill the information out to see what programs you may qualify for as well as the rates, too.
Otherwise, you can always call us directly at 888-626-0439 and speak to one of our friendly representatives to help you discover what your options are for final expense life insurance.