Final expense insurance
A small whole life policy meant to cover a funeral and the costs that land on a family in the first weeks. Simplified issue, so it is health questions rather than a medical exam. This is the first product we are building, and it is pending state approval.
What final expense insurance is, in plain words
Most life insurance is sold to replace an income. This is not that. This is money for a funeral.
A funeral costs money, and it costs it quickly. The funeral home wants to be paid before the service. The cemetery or the crematory has its own bill. Somebody has to buy plane tickets so the grandchildren can be there. The utilities and the rent keep coming due while the family sorts everything out.
A final expense policy is a small whole life policy bought for exactly that. You name a beneficiary, usually a spouse or an adult child. When you die, that person receives the benefit and decides how to use it. There are no rules about spending it at a particular funeral home, because the money is theirs.
It is called final expense because that is the job. Other names for the same thing are burial insurance and funeral insurance.
This product is in development and pending state approval. Nothing on this page is an offer of insurance, no coverage can be purchased yet, and no premium, rate, or coverage amount is published, because the terms are whatever is filed and approved. Everything described here is design intent. Join the waitlist to hear when coverage opens in your state.
Who it is for
Final expense is bought by people who have looked at the arithmetic of their own funeral and did not like the answer.
People who do not want to leave a bill
The most common reason anyone buys this product. Not wanting the children to pass a hat, borrow, or put a funeral on a credit card is a complete and reasonable motive.
People with health history
Blood pressure, diabetes, a heart episode years ago, a list of medications. A fully underwritten policy may decline that applicant or price it out of reach. Simplified issue exists for this situation.
People on a fixed budget
The conversation starts from what a household can actually pay each month, on a Social Security or pension income, and works from there rather than the other way around.
People whose group coverage ended
Coverage through an employer often ends at retirement, and the amount that is left is frequently far smaller than the family assumed.
People who buried a parent
Nobody explains this product better than someone who has already organized a funeral and paid for it out of their own account.
People who want a modest amount
Coverage sized for a real purpose, rather than an investment product in disguise with a premium that does not fit the budget it came from.
What simplified issue means, and why it matters
Health questions instead of a medical exam. That one difference decides who can get covered at all.
- No medical exam. No nurse at the kitchen table, no blood or urine sample, no tape measure. The application asks questions and you answer them.
- No waiting on your doctor. A fully underwritten file often waits weeks for records to arrive from a physician office that has no reason to hurry.
- A shorter set of questions. Medications, conditions, recent hospitalization, and tobacco use, asked in language a person can answer without a chart in front of them.
- Built for the applicant a full exam would fail. Someone with real health history is often declined by a fully underwritten product or priced so high that the policy is theoretical. Simplified issue is designed for that applicant rather than around them.
- Honest about the trade. Simplified issue asks fewer questions, so the product is priced for a group rather than for one unusually healthy individual. Someone in excellent health with time to spare may do better with a fully underwritten policy, and a good agent will say so.
What the money is actually for
The benefit goes to the person you name. Here is what that person is usually paying for in the first few weeks.
The funeral home
Professional services, transportation, preparation, the casket or urn, the viewing, and the service itself. Funeral homes generally expect to be paid at or before the service, not after an estate settles.
Burial or cremation
The plot, the opening and closing of the grave, the vault where a cemetery requires one, and the marker or headstone. For a cremation, the crematory fee and whatever the family chooses afterward.
Getting the family there
Flights and hotels booked on three days' notice for the people who need to be in the room. This is the cost nobody plans for and everyone ends up paying.
The bills that do not stop
Rent or the mortgage payment, utilities, a car note, and the medical balances left over from the last illness. They all keep their due dates.
Settling the small things
Certified copies of a death certificate, clearing out a residence, and the administrative costs of closing a life down. Small individually, and not small together.
Room to grieve
The real product is a week in which a family can make decisions about a funeral without also making decisions about money.
Why we do not publish a coverage amount here. Funeral costs vary by region and by the choices a family makes, and the coverage amounts a product can offer are set by what is filed and approved in each state. Quoting a number for a product that is still in development would be a guess dressed up as a fact. When the product is approved, the amounts available to you will be shown before you are asked to sign anything.
Product characteristics and development status
What is being built, and where each piece stands. Stage describes build status inside our own product work. It is not a filing status, an approval status, or a release date.
| Characteristic | Stage | Design intent |
|---|---|---|
| Policy type | In development | Whole life, so the coverage is intended to last for the policyholder's lifetime rather than expire at the end of a term. |
| Underwriting style | In development | Simplified issue. Health questions rather than a medical exam, a paramedical visit, or a wait on physician records. |
| Premium structure | In development | Level by design. The premium is set at issue and designed not to increase as the policyholder ages. |
| Purpose of the benefit | In development | Paid to the named beneficiary, who decides how to use it. Sized for funeral and end-of-life costs rather than income replacement. |
| Application experience | In development | A short guided application whose questions adapt to the answers already given, with e-signature by text, tablet, or email through Solved Enroll. |
| Underwriting engine | In development | Patented comparative underwriting, which evaluates a case against many products at once instead of one at a time. How that works. |
| Cases that do not fit | In development | Routed to a product that does fit rather than declined and abandoned, so the applicant leaves the conversation with somewhere to go. |
| Licensed agent support | In development | A licensed agent in the conversation for anyone who wants one, contracted through Solved Solutions. For agents. |
| Claims and beneficiary support | In development | Designed before the sales experience, because the claim is the week the product is actually judged. |
| Availability by state | Pending approval | Filings are sequential and a regulator controls the timeline, so we publish no state list and no launch date. See the roadmap. |
| Additional life lines | Planned | Term and other permanent products on the same comparative underwriting core, sequenced behind final expense. |
No premium, rate, coverage amount, issue age, approval percentage, or decision time is published for a product that is pending approval, because any of those would be misleading before the terms are final.
How the application is designed to work
Four layers, described as design intent. What actually happens depends on the approved product and the state.
The questions you answer
Who you are, who the beneficiary is, and a set of health questions. The questions adapt to the answers already given rather than marching through a fixed twelve-page form, so an applicant who takes two medications is not walked through a list built for someone who takes twenty.
What happens behind it
Comparative underwriting evaluates the case against the products available rather than putting it in a queue for a human to open next week. The factors behind the outcome are recorded with it, so the decision can be reviewed and defended later.
The decision, and what happens if it is no
The design target is an answer while the applicant is still in the conversation instead of a pending file. A case that does not fit this product is routed to one that does, because a person who came looking for coverage should not leave with nothing.
Signing, and then the decades after
E-signature by text, tablet, or email through Solved Enroll, and then the part that lasts: payment options when circumstances change, a phone number that reaches a person who can see the policy, and beneficiary support built before any of the sales material was.
This describes what we are building, not a product you can apply for today. Walk through the whole process
Read further
How it works
The whole process, step by step, written for the person applying.
ExploreHow underwriting works
Comparative underwriting, explainability, and what the health questions evaluate.
ExploreProducts and roadmap
What is in development, what is planned, and why no dates are published.
ExploreSolved Re
The products and managing general agency business behind the policies.
ExploreFAQs
Questions about final expense coverage
What is final expense insurance?
It is a small whole life policy bought for one purpose: paying for a funeral and the bills that arrive with it. The money goes to the person you name, and that person can use it for the funeral home, the burial or cremation, the headstone, travel for family, or the household bills that do not stop. It is not an investment and it is not meant to replace an income. It is meant to make sure nobody has to raise money in the worst week of their life.
What does simplified issue mean?
It means the application asks health questions instead of sending a nurse to your house. There is no medical exam, no blood draw, and no waiting on records from your doctor. Fully underwritten policies use all of that, which is why they take weeks and why they turn down or heavily price a lot of people in their sixties and seventies. Simplified issue exists for those people.
Will the premium go up as I get older?
The product is being designed with a level premium, which means the amount is set when the policy is issued and is not designed to increase as the policyholder ages. That matters because the usual way a cheap policy becomes an unaffordable one is a premium that steps up every few years until an eighty-year-old on a fixed income cannot pay it and loses the coverage after paying into it for decades. Final terms will be whatever is filed and approved in your state.
Is this the same thing as burial insurance?
Yes. Final expense, burial insurance, and funeral insurance are common names for the same kind of small whole life policy. Be careful with one thing: a pre-need plan bought directly from a funeral home is a different product tied to that specific funeral home. A final expense policy pays your beneficiary, and your family chooses where and how to spend it.
What if I take medications or have health conditions?
That is the normal case for this product, and it is the reason simplified issue underwriting exists. The application asks about your medications, your conditions, recent hospital stays, and tobacco use. We are not publishing the specific questions or the rules behind them while the product is in development. You can read how the underwriting is built on our underwriting page.
Can I apply today?
No. This product is in development and pending state approval, so there is no application to take and nothing on this page is an offer of insurance. Join the waitlist and we will email you when coverage opens in your state. One email, not a campaign.
Something else? Contact us
Be first to know when it opens in your state
The product is in development and pending state approval. The waitlist is how you hear when that changes.