Hartford Life and Accident Insurance Company

The Hartford is a highly regarded, financially strong company with a long lineup of insurance products, including affordable group life benefits offered through the workplace.

Product Availability

Review Breakdown

Price/Value

A lot of factors determine the cost of life insurance, including your age, sex, weight, and health.

Different factors influence your rates from The Hartford, as the company sells workplace life insurance.

The level of coverage you choose and the amount your employer pays will also affect the cost of coverage.

The Hartford doesn’t provide online quotes for its policies, due to the factors above, so it’s hard to compare the company’s rates to its competitors.

Employer-sponsored life insurance is usually a cost-effective choice, costing the employee little to nothing in premiums.

However, most people need to supplement their coverage with an individual policy which offers higher face amounts.

The Hartford’s policies come with the added value of portability, meaning your coverage can stay in effect even if you change jobs.

Financial Strength

It’s crucial to choose a dependable life insurance carrier with the means to meet its financial commitments.

In terms of financial strength, The Hartford is undoubtedly one of the industry’s premier insurers.

To assess a life insurance carrier’s financial strength, we can look to its credit ratings.

The company has a string of positive ratings from three of the four major credit rating agencies.

A.M. Best	A
Moody’s	A2
Standard & Poor’s	A+

Businesses across the country entrust The Hartford with their employees’ life insurance, and the ratings above suggest you can trust the company, too.

User Experience

User experience is another important but sometimes overlooked aspect of choosing a life insurance company.

You should select a provider with a reputation for caring for its policyholders and simplifying the life insurance process.

To score The Hartford’s user experience, we’ve looked at factors like its ratings, website, and application process.

Ratings

The Better Business Bureau is a useful tool for assessing life insurance companies, rating businesses based on how they interact with clients.

While the company is not BBB-accredited, The Hartford has been assigned an “A+” rating.

J.D. Power’s individual life insurance study is another valuable metric for comparing providers based on user experience.

Because The Hartford specializes in group insurance rather than individual policies, it is not featured in J.D. Power’s survey.

Website

The Hartford’s website is clearly designed, easy to navigate, and contains useful information.

Investors, insurance shoppers, and policyholders can use the site to find out more about the company’s history, financial outlook, and philanthropic efforts.

The site also provides basic information about the types of policies it offers, listing out features like available riders.

Since policies are offered through the workplace and rates depend on outside variables, the site does not feature online quotes.

Policyholders can also view their policy information and payment details with an online account, though some tasks may need to be carried out with their HR representative.

Application

To apply for a life insurance policy from The Hartford, you must work for a company which offers its benefits.

You can get more information by contacting a representative of The Hartford or speaking to your company’s HR department.

Group life insurance does not typically involve medical underwriting, making it easy for older applicants and those in poorer health to qualify.

You should be able to secure coverage with a brief application, providing your basic personal information.

To purchase additional coverage in the form of voluntary insurance, you may have to provide evidence of insurability, which could involve medical underwriting.

Product Availability

The Hartford provides applicants with employer-sponsored life insurance policies, among several other lines of insurance.

Here’s a closer look at what you can expect from their term life policies.

Group

Group life insurance from The Hartford can provide up to $500,000 of term coverage to employees, depending on their salary.

This group life plan also offers a living benefit option which provides terminally ill employees and their family members with coverage.

The Hartford’s group life policy is portable, so employees who leave their company don’t have to worry about losing their coverage.

Additionally, The Hartford offers a wide variety of programs to simplify the will and funeral planning experience.

The Hartford also offers Accidental Death & Dismemberment Insurance (AD&D) which can be added to a group term policy or purchased as a standalone policy.

Voluntary

In addition to group life, The Hartford offers employees voluntary life insurance.

This supplementary coverage can help cover expenses such as:

• Will preparation
• Funeral planning and travel
• An allowance for an accidental death & dismemberment rider

The policy is portable and convertible as well, so you can convert the coverage into whole life insurance down the line.

Spouses can also be insured for up to 100% of the employee’s coverage amount, and children may obtain coverage up to $15,000.

Brand/Size

The Hartford Life Insurance Company is part of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.

Simply known as The Hartford, the group is not only one of the largest insurance companies in the country, but also one of the largest businesses in general.

The Fortune 500 behemoth has more than 19,500 employees and over $74 billion in total assets.

The Hartford got its start in 1810 as a fire insurance company.

Fifteen years later, the company expanded its offerings to include academia, with its inaugural insurance plan going to Yale University.

Fast forward to 1913, when The Hartford formed the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company.

This expansion gave the company the ability to provide a broader range of insurance products, including accident, automobile, personal damage, and business interruption.

In 1970, the ITT Corporation, a New York-based manufacturing company, acquired The Hartford for $1.4 billion, the largest corporate takeover ever at the time.

Recently, The Hartford has done some of its own purchasing, as it acquired Navigators for around $2.1 billion.

The company is also the exclusive home and auto insurance provider for AARP members.

For a while, The Hartford went by ITT-Hartford Group, Inc., before reverting to its original name in 1997.

During that time, it also became a publicly traded entity on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HIG).

The most critical event in their story happened in 2013 when The Hartford sold its life insurance business to Prudential.

This transaction came as a result of The Hartford’s strategy to divest from non-core businesses and instead focus on property and casualty insurance.

Being a Fortune 500 company, The Hartford unsurprisingly offers a long list of additional products, includung:

• Auto insurance
• Business insurance
• Homeowners/renters insurance
• Retiree health insurance
• Short and long term disability

Philanthropy

The Hartford has earned countless awards for its humanitarian focus, including being labeled by Forbes as one of the “Most Just” companies in America.

The Hartford has taken on a high standard when it comes to its relationship with the local community as well, with a Junior Fire Marshal Program, an Opioid Awareness Program, an Ability Equipped Program, and more.

They also gave back to the community in the following ways in 2020:

• Investing $13.9 million into local communities
• Donating to more than 5,000 nonprofit organizations
• Impacting 2.3 million individuals’ lives
• Reducing greenhouse emissions by 66% since 2007

Brand Recognition

The Hartford may have less brand recognition than some of the other companies of the same size.

However, The Hartford is a familiar name to many due to its longstanding history, size, partnership with names like AARP and Prudential, and community involvement.

The company also has a sizable following across its social media platforms, with active accounts on:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Youtube

The company uses these platforms to interact with customers, share employee stories, and educate followers on financial topics.

Consensus

Before you settle on a provider, it’s usually a good idea to consult with multiple sources.

In addition to evaluating the company for ourselves, we’ve delved into reviews from across the industry to gauge the consensus around The Hartford.

The verdict? Most other experts, like us, haven’t included The Hartford as one of the best overall life insurance companies because of its emphasis on group and voluntary life insurance.

But this shouldn’t deter you from securing coverage from The Hartford if your company offers it.

The Hartford checks the right boxes as a financially stable company with an impressive track record.

And while you may need to buy more coverage to adequately protect your family, getting a portable base policy which costs little to nothing is a no-brainer.