What a "unit" actually is

Most life insurance is sold by coverage amount: you pick $10,000 or $25,000 and the price varies with your age and health. The $9.95 plan inverts that: the price is fixed and the coverage varies. Every applicant pays $9.95 per unit per month; what changes is how much coverage that unit buys — and it shrinks as your age at purchase goes up. A woman in her early 60s might get roughly $1,500–$1,700 per unit; a man in his late 70s, closer to $750–$900. You can buy multiple units, but each one is priced the same way.

The plan's real feature is guaranteed acceptance: no health questions, no exam, no one is turned down between the eligible ages. That guarantee is what the pricing pays for.

The 2-year graded death benefit

Like every guaranteed-acceptance policy, the $9.95 plan starts with a graded period: if you pass away from non-accidental causes during the first two years, your beneficiary receives the premiums you paid plus interest — not the face amount. Full coverage begins in year three (accidental death is typically covered in full from day one). This is standard for the product class, but TV spots rarely dwell on it.

The math: units vs. what real buyers pay

The honest way to compare burial insurance is cost per $1,000 of coverage. At $9.95 for roughly $750–$1,700 of coverage, unit pricing works out to about $6–$13 per $1,000 per month depending on your age and gender.

Now the comparison that matters. Across the real burial insurance policies purchased through our service (July 2024 – July 2026), the median buyer pays:

Even buyers in their 70s — including people with health conditions — pay a median of $4.77 per $1,000. The $9.95 plan's $6–$13 range sits at or above the top of the real market at nearly every age. Per dollar of protection, it is one of the most expensive ways to buy this insurance.

Roughly what a unit buys, by age (approximate)

Colonial Penn publishes unit values by age and gender in its materials; the exact figures vary by state and change over time, but the public pattern looks like this:

Notice the design: the price never changes, so the product shrinks instead. An 80-year-old buying three units pays $29.85/month for roughly $2,300–$3,000 of coverage — before the 2-year graded period is considered. For comparison, the median buyer at 80+ in our data pays about $7.10 per $1,000 — meaningfully below the ≈$10–$13 per $1,000 that units work out to at that age.

Why the plan is everywhere anyway

Because the ad answers the two fears older buyers actually have: "will I be turned down?" (no — acceptance is guaranteed) and "can I afford it?" ($9.95 sounds affordable because the price is fixed even though the value floats). It's brilliant marketing for a legitimate product class — guaranteed-issue whole life — aimed at the small minority who truly need that class. The problem is the majority who buy it without checking whether they'd pass a simple questionnaire.

Who the $9.95 plan is actually right for

Guaranteed acceptance has a legitimate audience: people who cannot qualify anywhere else — serious COPD, oxygen use, dialysis, dementia, a very recent cardiac event. If health questions would disqualify you everywhere, a guaranteed-issue policy (Colonial Penn's or a competitor's) is a real solution, and comparing guaranteed-issue offers against each other is worth doing.

But most people over-estimate how strict the questions are. Managed blood pressure, controlled type 2 diabetes, even a cancer history a few years back — many carriers will still offer simplified issue coverage with day-one protection at a lower cost per $1,000. If you can answer a few health questions, you will almost always do better than unit pricing.

How to compare in three steps

Step 1 — Price the coverage, not the payment. Divide any quote by the thousands of coverage it buys. $9.95 for ~$1,100 of coverage is ≈$9 per $1,000; $70/month for $25,000 is $2.80 per $1,000. The second policy costs seven times the payment and one third the unit price.

Step 2 — Check the first two years. Ask one question: "if I die of natural causes in month 18, what does my family receive?" Level policies answer "the full face amount." Graded and guaranteed-issue policies answer "your premiums back plus interest." That difference is worth real money in the price — make sure you're getting paid for accepting it, not defaulting into it.

Step 3 — Try the questionnaire before accepting "no questions." The health questions on simplified-issue applications are shorter and more forgiving than most people assume. Two minutes of questions can move you a full price tier down. If you genuinely can't pass any carrier's questionnaire, a guaranteed-issue plan is the right tool — and then it's worth comparing several GI offers, not just the one on TV.

Figures for unit coverage are public approximations that vary by age, gender and state; per-$1,000 medians come from real policies purchased through our partner carriers (July 2024 – July 2026), aggregated — see the methodology on our cost page. Colonial Penn is a registered trademark of its owner; we are an independent matching service.