West Coast Life Insurance Company merged with Protective Life in 1997, and Protective has announced to life insurance agents that they will stop accepting applications on West Coast Life paper on December 1, 2011. It’ll be all Protective Life from that point forward. Protective did a similar thing with Empire General Life Assurance Company back in the 1990’s. West Coast Life was begun in 1906 in San Francisco right before the great earthquake. The company’s founders rightly considered that the West Coast of the US needed it’s own life insurance company, and it quickly prospered. Given the death toll from the great earthquake in 1906 was above 3,000, and remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California history, that tragic event undoubtedly motivated survivors to protect themselves with life insurance coverage.
West Coast Life policy holders will likely see their policy’s name changed to Protective Life in 2012. There will be no impact on policy provisions, but name changes are not good. It’s adds a potentially obscuring layer to the paper trail for the beneficiaries and contribute to unclaimed life insurance, which has made the news this year in the life insurance industry.
For West Coast Life term policy holders, I strongly recommend you consider other options, especially if you may want or need permanent life insurance after your term coverage ends. West Coast Life term policies, sold years ago, were initially strong for conversion: up to age 75 with a wide range of product options, including guaranteed universal life. However during this Great Recession, Protective Life has sharply reduced term conversion options, and West Coast is in my bottom tier of carriers for conversion: very limited and relatively expensive permanent products.
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