August 7, 2026
3:14 pm

Can You Sell a Ameritas Final Expense / Burial Policy? (2026)

Ameritas does not market a final expense or burial product, so a small-face policy bearing the Ameritas name almost always came from somewhere else first. The company’s own individual life shelf starts well above burial size — its term product line, for instance, has been issued from $100,000 upward. That mismatch is the clue, and following it is the most useful thing most readers of this page can do.

Ameritas absorbed several other insurers over the past two decades, and older contracts issued by those companies are administered under the Ameritas name today. If you are holding a $10,000 policy on a parent or a spouse, the original issuing company is probably one you have never associated with Ameritas at all. Identifying it determines which policy number to cite, which servicing unit answers, and whether the contract has features the family did not know about.

The other answer is simpler. A burial policy of $5,000 to $25,000 cannot be sold, because the life settlement market’s fixed transaction costs exceed anything a buyer could pay at that size. Below: how to trace the policy, what it is really worth, and the moves that do produce value. Pine Lake Life Solutions provides education and a free policy review; it does not purchase policies and is not licensed in every state.

In This Article

Trace the policy through Ameritas’s predecessor companies
Why a burial-size policy has no buyer
How burial policies are priced, and what the carrier holds back
Pre-need contracts sold through a funeral home
The moves that produce real value at this size
The one exception, and how to record what you find
Frequently Asked Questions

Can You Sell a Ameritas Final Expense / Burial Policy? (2026)

Trace the policy through Ameritas’s predecessor companies

Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. is domiciled in Nebraska, with its home office at 5900 O Street in Lincoln, and its domiciliary regulator is the Nebraska Department of Insurance. New York business is written by the separate Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. of New York, supervised by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

The corporate lineage runs deep. The company began in 1887 in Lincoln as a Nebraska bankers’ life association, operated for most of the twentieth century as Bankers Life Insurance Company of Nebraska, adopted the Ameritas name in 1988, and reorganized into a mutual holding company structure in 1998. It then combined with Acacia Life Insurance Company of Washington, D.C. in 2005 and with The Union Central Life Insurance Company of Cincinnati, Ohio in 2006, operating under UNIFI Mutual Holding Company before that entity was renamed Ameritas Mutual Holding Company in 2013.

So a small permanent policy now serviced by Ameritas may carry any of these names on its face: Bankers Life Insurance Company of Nebraska, Acacia Life, Acacia National Life, or Union Central Life. Every one of those contracts remains valid and enforceable. What changed is the administrative home. When you write, cite the original policy number exactly as printed, name the original issuing company, and send the request to the Ameritas service address on the premium notice.

One more identification point, because it accounts for a surprising share of confusion: Ameritas is a large dental, vision and hearing insurer. A great many households hold an Ameritas card that is a dental plan, not life insurance. A dental plan has no death benefit and nothing to sell. If you cannot find any contract at all, how to find out if a policy still exists covers the NAIC policy locator and state unclaimed property databases.

Why a burial-size policy has no buyer

The reason is cost structure, not preference. Before a provider can make an offer it commissions at least one independent life expectancy report from a specialist medical underwriting firm, at a cost running into four figures, and frequently a second for corroboration. It retrieves records from every treating physician. It pays for legal review and escrow at closing. Then it funds premiums and carries a servicing cost for as long as the insured lives.

None of that scales down. Against a $1 million policy those costs vanish into the transaction; against a $15,000 policy they exceed the entire economic value of the contract to a buyer. That is why providers publish minimums, generally at $100,000 and above with real competitive bidding starting higher, and why an honest intermediary will say so in the first conversation. The thresholds are set out in minimum policy size for a life settlement and the product category in can I sell a final expense policy.

Treat any solicitation to buy a small burial policy as a signal to stop. The economics of a legitimate offer are absent, and what the approach actually collects — a signed medical authorization, a Social Security number, a date of birth, physician names — is a complete identity package. Do not supply those to an unsolicited caller, mailer or website.

How burial policies are priced, and what the carrier holds back

Understanding the product from the insurer’s side explains every provision in it. A carrier writing small-face coverage on applicants aged 50 to 85 with little or no underwriting is accepting a pool it cannot screen. It has two ways to protect itself: charge substantially more per thousand of coverage, and limit what it pays early.

The first shows up as premium. Cost per thousand on simplified issue coverage — a short health questionnaire plus a prescription history check, no exam — runs well above a fully underwritten policy, and guaranteed issue coverage, which asks nothing at all, costs more still.

The second shows up as a graded or modified death benefit. During an initial period, commonly two or three years from issue, death from natural causes returns premiums with interest or pays a stepped share of the face amount rather than the full benefit, while accidental death pays in full from the start. This is the provision most owners have never read, and it has two hard consequences. If the insured is inside the window, the coverage genuinely in force is a fraction of the printed face amount. And replacing the policy restarts the window, which is why swapping burial coverage late in life is usually a mistake no matter how the premium comparison looks.

Find the provision, write the end date on the outside of the folder, and check whether the policy has ever lapsed and been reinstated — a reinstatement can restart contestability and, on some contracts, the graded period as well. See policy reinstatement.

Name on the contract	What it was	Serviced today by	What to cite when you write
Bankers Life Insurance Company of Nebraska	The company’s name before 1988	Ameritas Life Insurance Corp.	Original policy number and issuing name
Acacia Life or Acacia National Life	Washington, D.C. insurer combined in 2005	Ameritas Life Insurance Corp.	Original policy number and issuing name
The Union Central Life Insurance Company	Cincinnati, Ohio insurer combined in 2006	Ameritas Life Insurance Corp.	Original policy number and issuing name
Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. of New York	The New York issuing entity	Itself; NY Department of Financial Services	Policy number and New York residence
Ameritas dental or vision plan	Health coverage, not life insurance	Ameritas	Nothing to sell; no death benefit

How burial policies are priced, and what the carrier holds back

Pre-need contracts sold through a funeral home

Some small-face coverage is not an ordinary policy. A pre-need funeral contract funds a specific goods-and-services agreement and is normally assigned to the funeral home, frequently on an irrevocable basis, so proceeds are directed to the provider rather than to a family beneficiary. Some designs increase the benefit by a stated factor intended to track the cost of the selected services.

An irrevocably assigned pre-need contract cannot be sold, and often cannot be surrendered by the family either, because the household no longer owns the benefit. These arrangements are separately regulated in most states, typically by both the insurance department and the board that licenses funeral directors, and they carry protections ordinary policies lack, including rules covering what happens if the funeral home closes or changes ownership.

Identify one by the funeral home named as assignee or beneficiary, an attached goods-and-services statement, and an irrevocability clause. Where the assignment was made to meet Medicaid rules, the irrevocability was deliberate, and unwinding it can create an eligibility problem. That question belongs with an elder law attorney rather than with anyone proposing to buy the policy.

The moves that produce real value at this size

Nothing on this list requires a counterparty, a broker, or the disclosure of medical records to a stranger.

Locate the accelerated death benefit rider. Small whole life contracts frequently carry a terminal illness rider at no additional premium, and some add a chronic illness rider. On a qualifying diagnosis the carrier advances part of the death benefit directly. Terminal riders generally require physician certification of a life expectancy under 12 or 24 months. See the accelerated death benefit rider.
Request the cash surrender value in writing. Older legacy contracts from Bankers Life of Nebraska, Acacia or Union Central may have been in force for decades and can hold more value than the family expects.
Ask whether the policy is participating. Ameritas operates under a mutual holding company structure, and some legacy contracts are dividend-eligible. If dividends were applied to buy paid-up additions, the actual death benefit today may exceed the original face amount, and the additions can often be surrendered separately for cash while the base policy continues.
Use the nonforfeiture options if premiums are the problem. Reduced paid-up insurance converts the cash value into a smaller policy requiring no further payments. Extended term insurance keeps the full face amount for a stated number of years, which suits an insured in poor health with a short horizon. Either preserves value; lapsing forfeits it.
Inventory the household. A burial policy is rarely the only coverage, and a larger permanent contract elsewhere may be the one with genuine options — see selling an Ameritas whole life policy.

The one exception, and how to record what you find

There is a narrow case where a smaller policy gets a second look: a terminal diagnosis with a short, physician-certified life expectancy. The discount a buyer applies shrinks sharply in that situation, and a handful of specialist firms will consider face amounts below the ordinary threshold. Even then most will not go under roughly $50,000 to $100,000, and the accelerated death benefit rider already on the contract is usually faster and cleaner than any outside transaction.

Whatever you conclude, finish by writing it down. Record the original issuing company name, the current servicing company, the policy number, the service address, the face amount, the beneficiary and the date any graded period ends — and keep that page with the will rather than only with the policy. Families searching for a policy under a name like Acacia Life or Union Central, years after the fact, routinely fail to connect it to Ameritas. A single sheet of paper prevents an unclaimed death benefit.

Pine Lake Life Solutions reviews policies of any size and will say plainly when a sale is not realistic. It does not purchase policies and is not licensed in every state.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Ameritas sell burial or final expense insurance?

Not as part of its marketed individual life lineup, which starts well above burial size; its term products, for example, have been issued from $100,000 upward. A small-face policy carrying the Ameritas name is therefore most often a legacy contract originally issued by Bankers Life Insurance Company of Nebraska, Acacia Life, Acacia National Life or Union Central Life, all of which Ameritas absorbed and now administers.

My policy says Acacia Life. Is it still in force?

It can be. Acacia Life Insurance Company combined with Ameritas in 2005, and Union Central Life followed in 2006, so contracts issued under those names are administered by Ameritas today. The coverage remains valid and enforceable. Write to the Ameritas service address citing the original issuing company name and the policy number exactly as printed, and request written confirmation that the policy is in force.

Why can a $10,000 policy not be sold?

Because the fixed costs of a settlement transaction exceed what the contract could be worth to a buyer. Independent life expectancy reports, medical record retrieval, legal review, escrow and years of premium servicing cost roughly the same regardless of face amount. Providers set minimums generally at $100,000 or above. A solicitation to buy a small burial policy is a reason for caution rather than an opportunity.

Could my old policy be worth more than its face amount?

Possibly, if it is a participating contract and dividends were applied to purchase paid-up additions. Those additions add both death benefit and cash value over decades, so the total benefit today can exceed the original face amount. Ask the company for the current total death benefit, the cash value attributable to additions separately from the base policy, and the dividend option currently in effect.

What is a graded death benefit and does mine have one?

It is a provision limiting what the policy pays if death from natural causes occurs during an initial period, commonly two or three years from issue, returning premiums with interest or a stepped percentage instead of the full face amount. Accidental death normally pays in full immediately. Look for a provision headed graded, modified or limited death benefit, and note whether any lapse and reinstatement restarted the clock.

How do I stop this policy from being lost after I die?

Write a single page listing the original issuing company, the current servicing company, the policy number, the service address, the face amount, the beneficiary and the date any graded period ends, and keep it with your will rather than only with the policy. Families searching under a name like Acacia or Union Central often fail to connect it to Ameritas, which is how benefits go unclaimed.

Find out what your policy is worth — free, confidential, no obligation.

A 15-minute educational review covers your eligibility, every alternative, and a realistic view of what each path would net you.

Call (305) 209-7183 · Request a review online →

Table of Contents