Life Insurance for Veterans: VGLI vs. Private Coverage (2026 Guide)

SGLI Ends When You Separate

While you’re in uniform, life insurance is the easiest financial decision you’ll ever make. SGLI (Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance) covers you up to $500,000 for about $31 a month, no questions asked. Most service members check the box at the maximum and never think about it again.

Then you separate, and the clock starts.

SGLI coverage ends 120 days after your separation date. That’s it. The coverage you’ve carried for four years or twenty-four years simply expires, and a surprising number of veterans don’t realize it until well after the fact. If something happens in month five and you haven’t replaced the coverage, your family gets nothing.

This guide covers your three real options after separation — converting to VGLI, applying for VA programs like VALife, or buying private coverage — and, more importantly, which option actually makes sense for your situation. We’re an independent brokerage, which means we don’t sell VGLI and we don’t work for any single carrier. We’ll tell you when the government program is the better deal, because sometimes it genuinely is.

A note on “SGLI vs. private” while you’re still serving: if you’re active duty and comparing SGLI to a private policy, keep SGLI — $500,000 for about $31 a month with zero underwriting is a rate no private carrier can touch, and it covers you in situations (combat deployment, hazardous duty) that some private policies exclude or surcharge. The real “government vs. private” decision isn’t SGLI vs. private; it’s what you do the day your separation clock starts. Because SGLI simply ends, the meaningful comparison for nearly every veteran is VGLI vs. private term — which we break down in detail below. The one move worth making before you separate: if you expect to be healthy enough to qualify for private coverage, you can line up a private term policy while still in uniform so there’s no gap the day SGLI stops.

The 240-Day VGLI Window (No Health Questions)

VGLI (Veterans’ Group Life Insurance) is the VA’s conversion program for separating service members. It lets you carry up to the amount of SGLI you had at separation — up to $500,000 — into civilian life as renewable term coverage.

Here’s the part that matters most, and the part too many transition briefings undersell:

If you apply within 240 days of separation, VGLI asks zero health questions. No exam, no medical records, no questions about deployments, diagnoses, medications, or anything else. You cannot be declined. Your PTSD diagnosis, your TBI, your back surgery, the diabetes you developed at 38 — none of it matters inside that window.

After day 240, the window doesn’t slam shut entirely — you can still apply for up to 1 year and 120 days after separation — but now you must answer health questions, and the VA can decline you. The difference between day 239 and day 241 can be the difference between guaranteed coverage and no coverage at all.

Why this matters so much for disabled veterans: if you’re separating with significant service-connected conditions — especially mental health conditions, recent cancer history, or anything that private underwriters treat harshly — the 240-day window may be the single best insurance opportunity you will ever have. We tell veterans in this situation to lock in VGLI first and ask questions later. You can always shop for private coverage afterward and drop VGLI if you find something better. You cannot go back and reclaim the guaranteed-issue window once it closes.

A few more VGLI mechanics worth knowing:

• Coverage amount: You can convert up to your SGLI amount at separation. You can later increase coverage by $25,000 every five years (up to the $500,000 cap) until age 60.
• It never expires on you: VGLI is renewable for life. There’s no age where the VA cancels you, as long as you pay premiums.
• It’s term insurance, not whole life: No cash value. You’re paying purely for the death benefit.
• Premiums are age-banded: This is the catch, and it’s a big one. Your premium increases every five years, on a schedule that gets steep fast. More on that next.

VGLI Rates in 2026

VGLI premiums are the same for everyone — no discounts for excellent health, no surcharges for poor health. You pay based on your age band and coverage amount, period. Here are approximate monthly premiums for $400,000 of VGLI coverage (always confirm the current schedule at VA.gov before deciding):

Age Band	Monthly Premium ($400K)	What Happens Next
29 and under	~$24	+17% at 30
30-34	~$28	+7% at 35
35-39	~$30	+7% at 40
40-44	~$32	+38% at 45
45-49	~$44	+55% at 50
50-54	~$68	+59% at 55
55-59	~$108	+33% at 60
60-64	~$144	+60% at 65
65-69	~$230	+58% at 70
70-74	~$364	Continues climbing every 5 years

Look at the shape of that table. Through your 30s and early 40s, VGLI is cheap and the increases are gentle. Then the curve bends. Between age 44 and age 60, your premium more than quadruples. Between 44 and 70, it goes up more than elevenfold — for the same $400,000 of coverage.

This is the fundamental problem with VGLI as a long-term plan for a healthy veteran. It’s group insurance priced without underwriting, which means healthy people subsidize unhealthy people. That’s exactly why it’s a great deal if your health is poor and a poor deal if your health is good.

Other VA Programs: VALife and S-DVI

VGLI isn’t the only government option. Two others come up regularly:

VALife — Guaranteed Acceptance for Service-Connected Disabled Veterans

VALife (Veterans Affairs Life Insurance) launched in 2023 and is now the VA’s primary program for disabled veterans. The essentials:

• Who qualifies: Any veteran age 80 or under with a VA service-connected disability rating — even 0%. No health questions, guaranteed acceptance.
• Coverage: Whole life insurance in $10,000 increments, up to a maximum of $40,000.
• The catch: There’s a two-year waiting period. If you die of natural causes within the first two years, your beneficiary receives the premiums you paid plus interest — not the full face amount. Cash value also begins accruing after two years.
• No time limit: Unlike VGLI’s 240-day window, you can apply for VALife years or decades after separation, as long as you have a rating and you’re 80 or under.

VALife is genuinely useful — but be clear-eyed about what it is. $40,000 covers a funeral and some final expenses. It does not replace income, pay off a mortgage, or fund a child’s education. For a veteran with dependents, VALife is a supplement, not a plan.

S-DVI — Legacy Program

Service-Disabled Veterans Insurance (S-DVI) was the predecessor program, and it closed to new enrollment at the end of 2022. If you already hold an S-DVI policy, you can keep it, and in many cases keeping it makes sense (some policyholders qualify for waived premiums based on total disability). But if you’re researching options today, S-DVI is off the table — VALife is its replacement.

VGLI vs. Private Term: The Real Comparison

Here’s the question we get most from separating service members: should I just keep VGLI?

Our honest answer: if you’re reasonably healthy, almost never — and the math isn’t close.

Private term life insurance is medically underwritten, which means a healthy applicant gets rewarded with rates VGLI structurally cannot match. And unlike VGLI, a level term policy locks your premium for 20 or 30 years — no five-year increases, no steep curve in your 50s and 60s.

Here’s an approximate comparison for a healthy male veteran, $400,000 of coverage — VGLI’s current age-band rate vs. a 20-year level term policy at Preferred rates:

Age at Purchase	VGLI (today’s band)	Private 20-Year Term	Snapshot Savings
30	~$28/mo	~$17/mo	~39%
40	~$32/mo	~$24/mo	~25%
50	~$68/mo	~$55/mo	~19%
60	~$144/mo	~$150/mo	VGLI slightly cheaper today

If you stopped reading at that table, VGLI looks competitive — especially at older ages. But the table is a snapshot, and VGLI doesn’t hold still. The private premium is locked for 20 years. The VGLI premium jumps every five years. Run the same comparison over the full 20-year horizon and the picture changes completely.

Total 20-year cost, $400,000 of coverage, healthy male buying at age 40:

	Years 1-5	Years 6-10	Years 11-15	Years 16-20	20-Year Total
VGLI	$32/mo	$44/mo	$68/mo	$108/mo	~$15,100
Private 20-yr term	$24/mo	$24/mo	$24/mo	$24/mo	~$5,800

That’s roughly 62% savings for the same death benefit — about $9,300 kept in your pocket. Run the numbers at age 30 or 50 and the private policy wins by a similar margin. Even the 60-year-old in the snapshot above comes out far ahead with private term once VGLI’s 65-69 band (~$230/month) kicks in.

Women generally see even larger savings, since VGLI charges everyone unisex rates while private carriers price women lower.

When VGLI wins anyway:

• Your health makes private underwriting ugly. Recent cancer, poorly controlled diabetes, unstable mental health, significant heart disease — if private carriers would decline you or rate you at Table D and beyond, VGLI’s no-underwriting pricing is a gift. Take it.
• You’re inside the 240-day window and unsure. Lock in VGLI as a backstop, then shop private coverage. If you get approved at a good rate, drop VGLI. This costs you a few months of VGLI premium and protects you from every bad outcome.
• You need coverage past your insurable years. VGLI renews for life. A 20-year term policy ends. (Though for permanent needs, comparing term vs. whole life directly is usually the better framework than defaulting to VGLI.)

For a deeper look at what private coverage actually costs at different ages and health classes, see our guide to how much life insurance costs.

PTSD, Depression, and Private Underwriting

The most common reason veterans assume they can’t get private coverage — or don’t bother applying — is a mental health diagnosis. PTSD, depression, and anxiety show up constantly in the veteran applications we place, and the underwriting reality is far better than most veterans expect.

What underwriters actually evaluate:

• Stability and treatment compliance — Are you seeing a provider? Taking medication as prescribed? Consistency reads as low risk; untreated or recently changed treatment reads as uncertainty.
• Severity history — Hospitalizations, suicidal ideation or attempts, and time off work matter far more than the diagnosis itself. A PTSD diagnosis with outpatient treatment and steady employment is a routine case.
• Time since the last episode — Most carriers want to see 1-2 years of stability after a hospitalization or major episode before offering their best available class.
• Substance use — Alcohol or drug use alongside a mental health diagnosis is the combination that drives declines. Each condition alone is manageable; together they compound.

Which carriers are most lenient: In our experience, Prudential is consistently the strongest carrier for veterans with PTSD and mood disorders — they underwrite the actual clinical picture rather than penalizing the diagnosis code, and well-managed cases can come back at Standard or better. Banner Life is a close second, and their low base rates mean that even a mild table rating often produces the cheapest premium on the table. Carriers with rigid drop-down underwriting, by contrast, may quote the same applicant two tables worse.

The spread between the best and worst carrier offer on a mental health case is routinely 50-100% in premium. This is exactly the kind of case where an independent broker earns their keep — we know which underwriting desks treat a stable PTSD case as Standard and which ones reflexively table-rate it. Our full guide to life insurance with depression covers the underwriting questions, medication considerations, and carrier-by-carrier detail.

One important note on disclosure: answer every application question honestly, including mental health questions. Carriers check prescription databases and the MIB. An omission discovered later can void the policy when your family needs it most — which defeats the entire purpose.

VA Disability Income and Qualifying for Coverage

Two questions come up constantly from veterans receiving VA disability compensation:

Does receiving VA disability disqualify me? No. A disability rating is not a health record, and carriers don’t treat it as one. A 70% combined rating might be built from tinnitus, a knee injury, sleep apnea, and PTSD — some of those barely register in underwriting. What matters is each underlying condition, its severity, and its stability. We’ve placed veterans with 100% P&T ratings at Standard rates because the conditions behind the rating were well-managed.

Does VA disability count as income for coverage purposes? Yes. Carriers apply financial underwriting on larger policies — they want the death benefit to be reasonably proportional to your income, typically 10-30x depending on age. VA disability compensation counts as income for this purpose, as does military retirement pay. A veteran with $48,000/year in combined VA compensation and retirement can financially justify $500,000 to $1 million or more in coverage even without civilian employment income.

One practical tip: if a paramedical exam is a barrier — mobility issues, medical anxiety, or simply not wanting another appointment — several strong carriers now offer accelerated underwriting with no exam at meaningful coverage amounts. Our guide to no medical exam life insurance explains which programs are fully underwritten (good rates) versus simplified issue (convenience at a price).

Best Strategy by Scenario

After years of placing these cases, here’s how we’d summarize the playbook:

Healthy veteran, recently separated

Apply for private term immediately — a 20- or 30-year level term policy sized to your family’s actual needs. You’ll typically save 30-60% versus VGLI over the life of the policy, with a premium that never increases. If you’re still inside the 240-day window and want a belt-and-suspenders approach, take VGLI as a temporary backstop and cancel it once your private policy is in force. Start with our ranking of the best life insurance companies or have a broker shop it for you.

Veteran with significant health conditions or service-connected disabilities

Inside the 240-day window: Take VGLI at the maximum amount. Do not let this window close — it is the only guaranteed-issue offer at this coverage level you will ever receive. Then, with the safety net in place, explore private options. Many “uninsurable-sounding” conditions are quite placeable.

Outside the window: Apply for VALife if you have a service-connected rating ($40K guaranteed, no health questions), and work with a high-risk broker on private coverage in parallel. Stable PTSD, controlled diabetes, old injuries — these get approved at specific carriers regularly. If private underwriting comes back ugly, VALife plus any employer group coverage may be the floor you build from.

Career military retiree (20+ years of service)

Retiring after a full career is different from separating at the end of one enlistment, and the strategy shifts with it. Three things are usually true at once: you’re older at the point of separation (frequently your 40s or 50s), you may have accumulated service-connected conditions along the way, and — unlike a younger separatee — you have a military retirement pension and often VA disability compensation coming in. That last point is a genuine advantage most retirees don’t realize they hold.

Here’s how it plays out:

• Your retirement date is your SGLI cliff, same as anyone’s. Retirement counts as separation. SGLI ends 120 days after your retirement date, and the 240-day guaranteed-issue VGLI window applies to you exactly as it does to a first-term separatee. Don’t let a 20-year career lull you into missing a 240-day deadline.
• Your pension makes private coverage easier to justify, not harder. Carriers apply financial underwriting on larger policies, and both military retirement pay and VA disability compensation count as income. A retiree with a $45,000 pension plus VA compensation can financially support $500,000 to $1 million of private coverage even before any second-career civilian salary — the retirement income does the work.
• Age and health, not the pension, decide the VGLI-vs-private call. If you retire in good health in your early 40s, a 20- or 30-year private term policy locked in now will almost always beat VGLI’s climbing five-year bands over the life of the coverage. If you’re retiring with significant service-connected conditions, run VGLI (inside the window) as a backstop and shop private in parallel — the playbook is the same as any high-risk veteran, just at a later age.
• Mind the coverage gap around retirement. A career often ends alongside a mortgage that isn’t paid off and kids who aren’t done with school. The instinct to “wind down” coverage at retirement is frequently backwards — this can be a peak-need moment, not a step-down one.

The retiree who comes out ahead treats the 240-day window as a deadline, uses the pension as leverage for private underwriting, and sizes coverage to the obligations that are still standing — not to a round number that felt right at the retirement ceremony.

Older veteran (55+) still carrying VGLI

Re-shop it — now. This is the demographic where VGLI quietly becomes one of the most expensive term policies in America. If you’re healthy, a 10- or 15-year private term policy will likely cost a fraction of where your VGLI premium is heading at the next age band. If your health has declined, compare your VGLI cost against what a table-rated private offer actually comes back at — don’t assume. We’ve seen veterans in their early 60s cut their premium by half, and we’ve also told veterans to keep VGLI because it genuinely was their best deal. The only way to know is to get real quotes.

How to Apply

For VGLI: Apply online through VA.gov or via the OSGLI portal (Prudential administers the program for the VA). Have your separation date and SGLI coverage amount handy. Again — inside 240 days of separation, no health questions; after that, you’ll complete a health questionnaire.

For VALife: Apply online at VA.gov. You’ll need your service-connected disability rating on file. Approval is guaranteed if you meet the age and rating requirements; remember the two-year waiting period before the full death benefit applies.

For private coverage, the process looks like this:

1. Size the need first. Income replacement, mortgage payoff, kids’ education, final expenses. Most families with young children need $500K-$1.5M — far more than VALife provides and often more than the SGLI maximum.
2. Gather your medical picture. Conditions, medications, treatment dates, your VA rating breakdown. Surprises mid-underwriting cost you leverage; full information up front lets a broker pre-shop your case anonymously.
3. Pre-qualify before you formally apply. A good independent broker will run your profile past multiple carriers informally before any application hits the MIB. This matters double for veterans with health histories — you want one well-aimed application, not five declines on your record.
4. Compare offers, then decide on VGLI. If you’re inside the 240-day window, don’t cancel VGLI until your private policy is approved, paid, and in force. Never leave a coverage gap on a maybe.
5. Reassess at major life events. New child, new mortgage, VA rating changes, retirement — each is a reason to re-check whether your coverage and your carrier still fit.

The bottom line: You earned access to VGLI and VALife, and for veterans with serious health conditions, those programs are genuinely the best deal available — take them and don’t look back. But if you’re healthy, the government programs quietly overcharge you for decades, and a private term policy locked in early will protect your family for 30-60% less. The right answer depends entirely on your health, your timeline, and your family’s needs — and figuring that out before the 240-day window closes is worth an hour of your time. Get a free quote and we’ll run the comparison honestly, including telling you if VGLI is the better deal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I keep SGLI after I leave the military?

No. SGLI coverage ends 120 days after your separation date. You can convert it to VGLI (Veterans' Group Life Insurance), and if you apply within 240 days of separation, no health questions are required. After 240 days, you can still apply for up to 1 year and 120 days total, but you must answer health questions and can be declined.

Is VGLI worth it?

It depends on your health. For veterans with serious health conditions or recent service-connected disabilities, VGLI is often the best deal available because there is no underwriting inside the 240-day window. For healthy veterans, private term life is almost always 30-60% cheaper over time because VGLI premiums increase every five years and climb steeply after age 50.

Can disabled veterans get life insurance?

Yes, through several routes. VALife offers guaranteed acceptance whole life coverage up to $40,000 for any veteran with a service-connected disability rating, with no health questions. VGLI is available with no health questions inside the 240-day post-separation window. And many service-connected conditions — including well-managed PTSD and musculoskeletal injuries — are still insurable through private carriers at reasonable rates.

Does PTSD disqualify you from life insurance?

No. PTSD is one of the most commonly underwritten conditions for veteran applicants. Carriers look at treatment history, medication stability, work history, and any hospitalizations or substance use. Well-managed PTSD with no hospitalizations in the past few years can qualify for Standard rates at lenient carriers like Prudential and Banner Life. Severe or unstable cases may be table-rated or postponed, not automatically declined.

Can veterans get life insurance with no medical exam?

Yes. VGLI requires no exam (and no health questions inside the 240-day window), and VALife is guaranteed acceptance for service-connected disabled veterans. On the private side, many carriers now offer no-exam term policies up to $1 million or more for qualifying applicants — these use accelerated underwriting based on prescription and medical databases instead of a paramedical exam.