Voya Financial Insurance Review & Complaints: Life & Retirement Insurance (2023)

Premiums
Claims
Feedback
Financial Strength

Voya Financial is the former U.S. branch of international financial services company ING, operating now independently. They focus mainly on retirement and investment products, as well as life insurance products offered to people on an employee benefits basis.

What is Voya Financial, Inc.?

Voya Financial as a brand has only been around for about six years, but the company goes back to 1845 and the founding of the Fire Insurance Company of the Netherlands. That company became a part of ING Group in 1991, growing well beyond Europe to become one of the biggest financial services companies in the world.

ING entered the U.S. market even before taking on that well-known name, acquiring Security Life of Denver Insurance Company in 1977. It was not until after the merger that created ING, however, that the company started to make a name for itself, acquiring Cigna Financial in 2000 and CitiStreet eight years later.

In 2013, ING U.S. became Voya Financial, separating itself slowly from ING over the following years. Today Voya is completely independent of ING, which sold off the last of its shares in 2018.

That same year, Voya announced that it would exit the individual life insurance market, and no longer writes any new individual life policies.

Voya’s headquarters is located in New York City, with branch offices across the country. Products are sold through financial professionals across the country, with products sold in every state.

What types of insurance products are offered?

Voya product offerings are mainly focused on retirement, workplace benefits, and investing. They still offer life insurance coverage, but only as a group benefit under their workplace category. Individual investment and retirement products are still available.

Employee Benefits

Voya offers several group policies that can be offered as part of an employer-paid benefits package or as employee-paid voluntary benefits through payroll deductions.

Life Insurance is available with both term life insurance coverage and whole life insurance options to choose from. Both policies may be portable, and coverage options vary based on what the employer chooses to offer and what the employee chooses to carry.

Term life is offered without medical questions, making it easier to qualify for. Both plans offer rider options including accelerated benefits and child or spouse riders.

Disability Income Insurance provides a selected monthly benefit to replace income in the event that the insured is disabled and cannot work. These plans may be available without medical questions, depending on the options chosen.

Critical Illness Insurance is a lump sum policy that pays out upon diagnosis with one of the listed conditions. These include heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, and more. This benefit can be used for any purpose, not only for medical bills.

Accident Insurance is a similar policy, but rather than covering serious illness, the benefits are paid out after a covered accident. This can include fractures, burns, lacerations, and more. The plan includes benefits for medical bills as well as benefits that can be used for any purpose.

Hospital Confinement Indemnity insurance is designed to pay on a per-day basis when the insured is hospitalized. Again, benefits can be used for any purpose, including excess medical costs and to pay for everyday expenses.

Workplace Retirement

In addition to group insurance, Voya offers a full range of retirement investment options for a more secure financial future.

These include the most common retirement plan, the 401(k), a well as other options: 401(a), 403 (b), and 457. They also offer IRA options, in addition, the other retirement investment plans, both SEP and SIMPLE IRAs.

The type of plan available depends on the organization, as eligibility varies.

Health Savings Accounts

Voya offers a range of Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts. These can be used to put aside money intended to pay medical costs on a pre-tax basis.

The right type of account for each individual depends on several factors, including what type of major medical health insurance they carry.

Other Investments

They also offer a wide variety of individual IRAs and college savings plans including the most common option, the 529 College Savings Plan. Each investment option has a different purpose and risk tolerance level, which is best discussed in detail with a financial professional.

Does the company offer competitive rates?

Since they do not offer any individual life insurance policies, there are no rates available online. Premiums for group policies vary quite a bit since they are depending on the options selected by the employer and how much, if any, of the premium is being paid by the employer.

As a general rule, group insurance is more affordable than individual insurance, which is what makes it a benefit when offered at work. Group rates are not really comparable to individual insurance premiums.

Can claims be filed online?

Voya offers online claims submission as the primary method of filing. The website takes the insured through the steps of getting the claim started and how to upload the required documents. The site states that the claims process takes about 10-12 days.

There is a video that provides step-by-step assistance with filing a claim, and an entire library of claims forms.

There is no single phone number listed for a claims department, but the site will again walk the visitor through finding the correct person to whom their claims questions can be directed. Overall, it is a very helpful and informative claims section, which is not always the case with this type of company.

Are the financial strength ratings and consumer reviews positive?

Voya’s reputation has improved somewhat since we last reviewed them; at the time of our last look at this company, they appeared to have suffered somewhat from the split with ING.

The company’s Better Business Bureau (BBB) rating has improved to an A- from a B. There are 33 complaints on file in the past three years, and the company has been dinged on the rating for failing to respond to two of those. The seven reviews left on the page are all negative, and mainly to do with issues involving investment accounts.

Voya did not improve much in terms of reputation in the 2018 J.D. Power Life Insurance Study, possibly a reflection of the plan already in process to leave that market. They received two out of five overall in the annual study, which is below average.

There are 131 reviews of Voya on Consumer Affairs, with an overall one-star rating that is based on 41 ratings submitted over the past year. Complaints are varied, ranging from difficulty with claims to billing issues and paperwork problems.

With Voya’s exit from the individual life insurance market, it will take a little time for ratings and reviews to catch up. Not all of the reviews we found were from life insurance customers, however, and customers did have complaints about other products. Based on the size of this company, however, we did not find the volume of complaints to be high.

What’s the bottom line?

If you are being offered Voya benefits through work at reasonable life insurance rates for the life insurance industry, they are likely a good choice. Those looking for individual investments, however, may want to do a little more research and speak to an objective professional regarding investment options before deciding where to put their money.

The best way to save on your rates is to compare life insurance premiums. Enter your ZIP code into our free tool to get multiple life insurance quotes from more than one life insurance carrier to get started.