August 7, 2026
3:14 pm

Can You Sell a Ameritas Term Life Policy? (2026)

Ameritas term contracts contain a feature that misleads more owners than any other: renewability. The company’s Value Plus Term product has been sold with level periods of 10, 15, 20 and 30 years and described as renewable to age 95. Read quickly, that sounds like a policy which will still exist when the insured dies — exactly what a settlement buyer needs. It is not.

Renewal after the level period happens at annually increasing rates that reflect mortality at each attained age. Those rates are not a modest step up; by the eighties they climb toward a substantial fraction of the death benefit every year, and by the early nineties the arithmetic collapses entirely. No institutional buyer will fund an annually renewable term schedule to 95, because the premiums it would pay approach or exceed the benefit it hopes to collect. Renewability keeps a wasting contract technically alive. It does not make it an asset.

What does make a term policy marketable is the conversion right — the ability to exchange it for permanent coverage without evidence of insurability. Ameritas differs from several carriers in a helpful way here: it still writes a full permanent lineup, so there is a real menu to convert into. The constraint is the deadline. Below: where it sits, how to confirm it, and how to judge the result. 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

Renewable, convertible, and why only one of them matters
Pin down the conversion window, and do not assume it is generous
What you would be converting into
Who Ameritas is, and the names your policy may carry
Why an unconvertible term policy draws no bid
Sequencing the decision
Frequently Asked Questions

Can You Sell a Ameritas Term Life Policy? (2026)

Renewable, convertible, and why only one of them matters

These are two separate provisions with two separate deadlines, and term policies routinely contain both.

Renewability lets you continue the same term coverage past the level period without new underwriting, at premiums that increase every year. The contract stays in force as long as you keep paying. Value Plus Term has been described as renewable to age 95, and that is a genuine consumer protection — it means an insured who becomes uninsurable is not simply cut off at the end of year 20.

Convertibility lets you exchange the term coverage for a permanent policy issued by the same company, without evidence of insurability, at a premium based on the insured’s attained age. The result is a contract designed to pay a death benefit whenever death occurs rather than to expire.

A buyer prices the death benefit it expects to collect, minus the premiums it must fund to get there. On annually renewable term, that premium stream rises so steeply at older ages that the present value of the benefit is consumed by the cost of holding the policy. On a converted permanent contract — particularly one with a secondary guarantee — the funding obligation is knowable and manageable. That is the entire difference, and it is why the conversion deadline is the only date worth chasing. The provision is explained in the term conversion rider.

Pin down the conversion window, and do not assume it is generous

Conversion rights are stated as an earlier of test — the earlier of a stated number of policy years or a stated attained age of the insured. Across the industry the right commonly closes years before the level period ends.

On Ameritas term specifically, published product descriptions and distributor guides have described the conversion right as exercisable within a defined early window rather than across the whole level period, with one widely circulated description placing it within the first five policy years. Because product provisions vary by form number, issue state and issue year, treat that as a reason to verify urgently rather than as a fact about your contract. If your policy’s conversion right really does close in year five, an owner in year eleven has no option at all, and the sooner that is established the sooner the decision moves to what is actually available.

Ask the company, in writing, for five things: the conversion privilege expiry as a calendar date; the permanent plans this policy may convert into today, with product names and form numbers; the annual premium for each at the insured’s current attained age, for full and for partial conversion; whether evidence of insurability is required; and confirmation that the policy is in force and paid to a specific date. Cite the policy number and the insured’s date of birth, and keep a dated copy. Conversion generally requires premiums to be current, so a policy in its grace period can forfeit the right before the calendar deadline arrives.

What you would be converting into

Ameritas is in a stronger position than several carriers whose term blocks now sit with run-off administrators. It continues to write permanent life insurance, which means a conversion has somewhere real to go. The shelf has included variable universal life, index-linked universal life and traditional permanent designs, and the plan available to you will depend on the conversion provision in your specific form.

Which target you get matters enormously for value. A guaranteed universal life design is the best outcome for resale purposes, because the premium required to hold the death benefit in force is a contractual figure rather than a projection. A buyer inheriting that obligation knows exactly what it must pay, and prices accordingly. How those contracts behave is covered in selling an Ameritas guaranteed universal life policy.

An accumulation-oriented conversion is a weaker outcome for this purpose. A variable universal life contract, for example, depends on separate account performance and carries its own charges, so the funding needed to keep the death benefit alive is uncertain. Buyers discount uncertainty. If the only conversion target offered is an accumulation product, ask specifically whether a no-lapse or secondary guarantee rider is available with it and at what cost, because that single rider can change the answer.

Provision	What it gives you	Premium behavior	Value to a buyer
Renewability to age 95	Coverage continues past the level period	Increases every year with attained age	Essentially none; cost consumes the benefit
Conversion to guaranteed universal life	Permanent coverage with a known funding cost	Level and contractually guaranteed	Strongest
Conversion to an accumulation product	Permanent coverage, uncertain funding	Flexible, depends on charges and credits	Weaker unless a guarantee rider is added
Partial conversion	Permanent coverage on part of the face amount	Lower total outlay	Depends on the converted amount
No conversion right remaining	Term that will expire or renew unaffordably	Level then escalating	None

Who Ameritas is, and the names your policy may carry

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 under the New York State Department of Financial Services. Complaints go to the insurance department in your own state of residence.

The company began in Lincoln in 1887 as a Nebraska bankers’ life association, operated for decades as Bankers Life Insurance Company of Nebraska, took 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 The Union Central Life Insurance Company of Cincinnati in 2006, operating under UNIFI Mutual Holding Company until that entity was renamed Ameritas Mutual Holding Company in 2013.

Practically: an older term contract now serviced by Ameritas may bear any of those names on its face, and the conversion provision governing it is the one in that contract, not in a current Ameritas product brochure. Read your own form. If the contract came from Union Central or Acacia, its conversion terms may differ materially from anything Ameritas sells today.

Why an unconvertible term policy draws no bid

The buyer’s model is simple and unforgiving: death benefit, discounted from its expected payment date, minus the premiums required to hold the policy until then, minus a return commensurate with the risk that the insured lives longer than projected. Every input assumes the contract is alive at death.

Term without a live conversion right fails that assumption in one of two ways. Either it terminates at the end of the level period, in which case there is nothing to collect, or it renews at annually increasing rates, in which case the cost of holding it consumes the benefit. There is no cash surrender value to fall back on, because nonforfeiture values belong to permanent contracts.

This is why convertibility is the first question a competent intermediary asks, before requesting a single medical record. If a firm wants a signed authorization, a Social Security number and physician names before establishing whether the policy can be converted, the order of operations is wrong and you should decline. What a broker is supposed to do, and how brokers are compensated, is set out in what a life settlement broker is, and the general screen for term is in can I sell a term life insurance policy.

Sequencing the decision

Do these in order. Skipping steps is how people spend four months and end up where they started.

Confirm the conversion expiry date in writing. If it has passed, stop — there is no market, and the remaining questions are about whether to keep paying.
Get the conversion menu and attained-age premiums. Ask whether a secondary guarantee rider is available on each target plan and what it costs.
Compare the converted premium against the face amount. A converted premium that consumes a large share of the death benefit each year will leave little or nothing for a buyer to bid, whatever the face amount looks like.
Assess the insured honestly. Offers are driven by life expectancy. A healthy 63-year-old will rarely attract a meaningful bid regardless of contract quality. A 76-year-old with documented cardiac or oncologic history is a different case.
Then, and only then, take it to market. Offers are made on a permanent contract that exists, not on the possibility of creating one. The comparison is worked through in life settlement versus term conversion.

If the window has closed, redirect the effort. Read the rider schedule for a terminal illness accelerated death benefit, which pays from the carrier itself on a qualifying diagnosis with no third party involved. Decide about the premium on its merits — if health has declined and years remain in the level period, continuing to pay is frequently the best value in the household budget. Confirm the beneficiary designation, and record the servicing details with your estate papers. The broader framework is in selling a term life policy.

Pine Lake Life Solutions reviews policies at no cost, does not purchase policies, and is not licensed in every state.

Frequently Asked Questions

My Ameritas term policy is renewable to age 95. Does that make it sellable?

No. Renewal after the level period occurs at annually increasing rates reflecting mortality at each attained age, and by the eighties those premiums climb toward a substantial share of the death benefit each year. A buyer funding that schedule would spend most or all of what it hopes to collect. Renewability protects an uninsurable owner; it does not create an asset a buyer can price.

How long is the conversion window on an Ameritas term policy?

It varies by form number, issue state and issue year, and some published descriptions of the Value Plus Term product place the conversion right within a defined early window rather than across the full level period. Because a short window would foreclose the option entirely for a longstanding owner, treat this as a reason to confirm your own contract’s expiry date in writing without delay rather than assuming.

What can an Ameritas term policy convert into?

It depends on your contract’s conversion provision, but Ameritas continues to write permanent life insurance, so there is a genuine menu rather than the designated single product a run-off carrier must improvise. Ask for product names and form numbers, the annual premium at the insured’s attained age, and whether a no-lapse or secondary guarantee rider is available with each option and at what cost.

My policy says Union Central or Acacia. Which rules apply?

The rules in that contract. Ameritas combined with Acacia Life in 2005 and Union Central Life in 2006 and administers those blocks today, but the conversion provision governing your policy is the one printed in your own form, not the terms of a current Ameritas product. Request a duplicate specification page and the conversion provision, citing the original issuing company name and policy number.

Why does the type of conversion product change what a buyer will pay?

Because it determines how much certainty the buyer has about future premiums. A guaranteed universal life contract states the premium required to keep the death benefit in force, so the buyer knows its obligation exactly. An accumulation-oriented contract depends on charges and crediting, leaving the funding cost uncertain, and buyers price uncertainty by lowering their offer or declining to bid.

The conversion window has closed. Is there anything left to do?

Yes, though none of it involves selling. Read the rider schedule for a terminal illness accelerated death benefit, which pays from the carrier on a qualifying diagnosis. Decide about the premium on its merits, since a policy on an insured in poor health with years of level period remaining is often excellent value. Confirm the beneficiary designation and record the servicing details with your estate papers.

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