Knights of Columbus Insurance is the life insurance and annuity arm of a Catholic fraternal benefit society — not a normal insurance company you can buy from off the street. You can only get a policy if you join the Order, and joining means being a practicing Catholic man, 18 or older. The program is financially solid, with an A+ (Superior) rating from AM Best and about $124 billion of life insurance in force. For eligible Catholic families, the whole life coverage is genuinely competitive. For everyone else, the door is closed, and an open-market insurer is the better move.
Knights of Columbus Insurance at a glance
| Detail | Knights of Columbus Insurance |
|---|---|
| Company type | Fraternal benefit society (not-for-profit, member-owned) |
| Founded | 1882, New Haven, Connecticut |
| AM Best rating | A+ (Superior), affirmed November 14, 2025 |
| S&P Global rating | AA+ |
| Life insurance in force | About $124 billion |
| Assets under management | About $31 billion |
| Policies in force | Roughly 1.7 million |
| Field agents | More than 900 across the U.S. and Canada |
| Members worldwide | More than 2.2 million |
| Who can buy a policy | Members and their eligible family |
| Products | Term life, whole life, universal life, annuities, long-term care, disability income |
| Instant online quotes | No — quotes go through a field agent |
| Insurance phone number | 1-800-380-9995 |
| Headquarters | 1 Columbus Plaza, New Haven, CT 06510 · 203-752-4000 |
| Available in | United States and Canada |
Why people choose Knights of Columbus insurance?
If you’ve landed here, you’re probably weighing this insurer against the big commercial names — Northwestern Mutual, MassMutual, State Farm, maybe a digital outfit like Ethos. So let’s get the real reason out of the way first.
People don’t choose Knights of Columbus mainly for the policy mechanics. They choose it because the coverage and their faith come from the same place. Premiums fund Catholic charity instead of shareholder dividends. The money sits in investments screened against Catholic teaching. The agent who writes the policy is usually a fellow parishioner. For a practicing Catholic, that alignment is the product as much as the death benefit is.
That doesn’t make it the right pick for everyone, and this review won’t pretend otherwise. What follows is a straight company profile: where the Knights program is strong, where it’s weak, what it actually costs, how the claims and customer service side really works, and how it stacks up against insurers anyone can buy from. Every number here traces back to a primary source, and I flag the spots where other reviews quietly get it wrong.
A quick history: the society behind the insurance
The Knights of Columbus began in 1882, in the basement of St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut. A young parish priest, Father Michael J. McGivney, started it for a painfully practical reason. When a Catholic immigrant father died, his family often slid straight into poverty. McGivney wanted a pooled fund that would catch them.
That founding purpose still runs through the company. Knights of Columbus is a fraternal benefit society — a legal category, not a slogan. A fraternal benefit society is a membership-based nonprofit that provides insurance to its members and answers to those members rather than to investors.
The contrast is worth holding onto. A stock insurer works for shareholders who want profit. A mutual insurer works for its policyholders. A fraternal society works for its members and ties the whole operation to a shared mission — here, Catholic charity. Surplus flows two ways: back to policyholders as dividends, and out into charitable work.
The scale today is large. The Order reports more than 2.2 million members in over 17,000 councils worldwide. Its insurance program carries roughly 1.7 million policies and about $124 billion of coverage in force, which puts it among the bigger life insurers in North America and on the Fortune 1000 list.
The fraternal trade-off
The structure cuts both ways, and you should know both sides before signing a lifelong contract.
On the upside, earnings serve members and charity, and the investment approach follows Catholic social teaching — the company steers clear of industries it considers immoral. On the downside, a fraternal society has thinner access to capital markets than a giant public insurer. AM Best itself lists this limited financial flexibility as a mitigating factor in the rating. It doesn’t dent the company’s strength today; it’s simply a structural fact.
How financially strong is Knights of Columbus?
This is where I have to correct the record, because most competing articles get the headline number wrong.
The A++ myth — and the real rating
Search around and you’ll see page after page, Wikipedia included, claiming Knights of Columbus has held “A++ for more than 40 consecutive years.” Some reviews dated this year still print it. It’s wrong.
Here’s what actually happened. AM Best overhauled its rating methodology in 2017. In January 2018, it took Knights of Columbus off “under review” and downgraded the rating from A++ to A+. AM Best’s own press release uses the word downgrade in its title.
The current financial strength rating is A+ (Superior), affirmed November 14, 2025 — the second-highest of AM Best’s fifteen categories. The Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating sits at “aa” (Superior). And the Knights confirm it themselves: their official insurance FAQ states plainly that the Order is “currently rated A+ (Superior).”
So the honest read: this is still a very strong insurer. A+ is excellent. But it isn’t A++, and any review still saying so didn’t check the source. When a fact this basic is wrong across a whole industry of articles, it tells you those writers copied each other instead of pulling the filing. I pulled the filing.
The rest of the financial picture
Standard & Poor’s rates the company AA+. Forbes named the Knights of Columbus insurance program to its “America’s Best Insurance Companies” list every year from 2022 through 2024.
The underlying numbers back the ratings up. The Order reports about $124 billion of life insurance in force and roughly $31 billion in assets under management as of early 2026. AM Best grades its balance sheet strength at the strongest tier, and its net operating gain hit a multi-decade high a couple of years ago on the back of strong investment income.
For you, financial strength matters for one reason only: it signals whether the insurer can still pay a claim thirty or forty years from now. On that test, Knights of Columbus performs as well as just about anything you’d compare it against.
What types of insurance does Knights of Columbus offer?
The lineup is deliberately focused. It covers what a family actually needs and skips the complex, investment-linked products that big carriers love to upsell.
Term life insurance
Term life covers you for a fixed stretch of years and pays a death benefit if you die inside that window. It builds no cash value, which is exactly why it’s the cheapest way to buy a large death benefit.
The flagship is Accelerator Term, sold in 10, 15, and 20-year lengths, with coverage that typically starts around $100,000. Annual Renewable Term is a one-year policy that renews each year at a rising rate — handy as short-term or bridge coverage. Young Adult Term targets members aged 18 to 29 and their spouses with low entry-level pricing.
Term is the right call when your goal is pure income replacement during your working years for the lowest monthly premium.
Whole life insurance
Whole life is the company’s signature product, and it’s where the fraternal model earns its keep. A whole life policy covers you for life, locks your premium so it never rises, and builds guaranteed cash value. Participating policies can also earn annual dividends.
You get to choose how you pay. Standard whole life spreads premiums across your lifetime. Limited-pay whole life lets you finish paying after a set term — often 10 or 20 years — while the coverage continues for good. Single-premium whole life funds the entire policy with one lump sum and creates immediate cash value.
There’s also a graded death benefit final expense policy that needs no medical exam. It’s accessible, but it limits the payout during the first two policy years and costs more per dollar of coverage. Treat it as a fallback, not a first choice.
Universal and survivorship life
Universal life adds flexibility — you can adjust the premium and death benefit over time within policy limits. Survivorship universal life, sometimes called second-to-die coverage, insures two people and pays out only after the second death. Estate planners reach for it to cover estate taxes or hand a family business cleanly to heirs.
Annuities and retirement income
Knights of Columbus annuities are retirement savings tools. You contribute, the money grows tax-deferred, and the annuity later pays you an income stream you can’t outlive. The company leans toward fixed annuities with guaranteed payouts rather than market-linked products — a conservative posture that fits its overall character.
Long-term care and disability income
The Order also sells long-term care insurance and disability income insurance. Neither is its main focus, and the long-term care line carries a caveat I cover further down.
Product comparison
| Product | Best for | Builds cash value | Medical exam |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accelerator Term | Income replacement for a set period | No | Usually yes |
| Annual Renewable Term | Short-term or bridge coverage | No | Minimal at issue |
| Standard whole life | Lifelong coverage plus guaranteed growth | Yes | Yes |
| Limited-pay whole life | Paid-up coverage after a set term | Yes | Yes |
| Single-premium whole life | Lump-sum lifetime coverage | Yes, immediate | Financial review |
| Graded final expense | Small burial coverage, no exam | Yes, limited | No |
| Universal life | Flexible premium and death benefit | Yes | Yes |
| Survivorship universal life | Estate planning for couples | Yes | Yes |
| Fixed annuity | Guaranteed retirement income | N/A | Suitability review |
Do you have to be Catholic to get Knights of Columbus insurance?
Yes — and this single fact decides whether the rest of the review even applies to you.
To hold a Knights of Columbus policy as the primary insured, you have to be a member of the Order. Membership is open only to practicing Catholic men aged 18 or older who are in communion with the Holy See. There’s also a small annual membership due, often around $30, that you pay on top of your insurance premiums.
A member’s spouse and dependent children can be covered through his relationship to the Order. But the primary member has to clear the practicing-Catholic-male requirement. Women can’t join as primary members, though they take part in the wider Order through the Columbiettes and other auxiliaries.
Can non-Catholics buy Knights of Columbus insurance?
No. Non-Catholics can’t join the Order, so they can’t buy a policy. If you’re not Catholic, or you’re a woman shopping for your own coverage, the decision is simply made for you — compare open-market carriers instead. You’ll get a wider product shelf, instant online quotes, and no membership gate. That’s not a flaw in the Knights; it’s just what a faith-based fraternal society is.
A real scenario: two neighbors, two right answers
Picture two men on the same street, both 35, both shopping for a $500,000 policy to protect young families.
Daniel is a practicing Catholic and already active in his parish council. Joining the Order costs him almost nothing extra, and membership brings benefits well beyond insurance. He wants a guaranteed whole life policy, and he likes that his premiums help fund charity. He meets a field agent — a man he already knows from Mass — who builds an illustration over two unhurried conversations. Daniel buys participating whole life and feels good about both the coverage and the mission behind it.
His neighbor Marcus isn’t Catholic. He wants a quote tonight, after the kids are in bed, without joining anything. He opens a comparison site, answers a dozen questions, and has three term-life quotes inside twenty minutes. Two days later he buys a 20-year term policy from a digital insurer.
Neither man made a mistake. They wanted different things. Daniel wanted a values-aligned, relationship-based, permanent policy — and he qualified for one. Marcus wanted speed, simplicity, and open access. The takeaway: Knights of Columbus is an excellent fit for a particular person and a poor fit for everyone else, and the smart first move is figuring out which one you are.
How much does Knights of Columbus life insurance cost?
Here’s an honest limitation up front. Knights of Columbus doesn’t publish rate tables, and no responsible review can hand you exact Knights premiums without an agent illustration. Any page printing precise Knights of Columbus rate charts is guessing. I won’t do that to you.
What I can give you is verified open-market context, so you can tell whether a Knights quote is competitive when it lands in your inbox.
What drives the price
Premiums come out of underwriting. The big levers are your age, health history, tobacco use, the policy type, and the coverage amount. A healthy 35-year-old non-smoker pays far less than a 55-year-old smoker for the same death benefit. Permanent policies always cost more than term, because part of every premium dollar is funding cash value rather than pure protection.
Market benchmarks to compare against
For a $1,000,000, 20-year term policy, recent 2025–2026 industry data puts the average somewhere around $50 to $110 a month for a healthy adult, climbing steeply with age and for smokers. For a $100,000 term policy, a healthy applicant in their 30s can often pay well under $20 a month. For $500,000 of 20-year term, a healthy 40-year-old man averages roughly $30 a month.
Whole life runs several times higher than term for the same face amount, because it’s permanent and builds equity. Final expense and guaranteed-issue policies cost the most per dollar of coverage of all.
Use those figures as a yardstick. When a Knights field agent hands you an illustration, line it up against at least two open-market quotes for the identical term length and face amount. Knights term rates are generally described as competitive — but “competitive” only becomes real when you see the numbers side by side.
Don’t forget the membership due
When you tally total cost, add the annual membership due to the Knights side of the ledger. It’s small — often around $30 a year — and not enough to swing most decisions. But an honest comparison includes it, and most competitor reviews quietly leave it off.
Dividends and cash value, in plain English
Participating whole life policies can earn dividends. A dividend is your share of the company’s good results, declared each year at the discretion of the Board of Directors. Dividends are never guaranteed — but Knights of Columbus has a long, consistent record of paying them.
You normally get four choices for what to do with a dividend. Take it as cash. Use it to lower your premium. Let it sit and earn interest. Or buy paid-up additions.
Paid-up additions deserve a real explanation, since the term sounds like jargon. Think of them as small, fully paid-for chunks of extra insurance. Each one bumps up both your death benefit and your cash value, and you buy them with no new medical underwriting. Over a few decades, dividends reinvested as paid-up additions compound the policy’s value in a way that adds up.
The cash value itself grows tax-deferred. You can borrow against it, withdraw from it, or surrender the policy for its cash-surrender value. One caution: surrender value equals your accumulated cash value minus any surrender charges and outstanding loans. Loans and lapses can also trigger a tax bill if the amounts exceed your cost basis. Before you cash anything out, ask for a current in-force illustration and a surrender worksheet so you’re looking at real figures, not guesses.
Knights of Columbus insurance riders
Riders are optional add-ons that change what a policy does. The Knights menu is solid:
- Accidental Death Benefit — pays extra if death results from a qualifying accident.
- Chronic Illness rider (branded Chronic Illness Armor) — lets you draw on part of the death benefit early if you meet the chronic illness definition.
- Terminal Illness Accelerated Benefit — early access to the death benefit after a qualifying terminal diagnosis.
- Term Conversion rider — converts term coverage to permanent coverage with no new proof of insurability.
- Children’s Term rider — covers dependent children, often convertible later in life.
- Disability Waiver of Premium — waives your premiums if you become disabled under the policy’s definition.
- Guaranteed Purchase Option — lets you buy more coverage at set life events without another medical exam.
One note for comparison shoppers. Some financial commentators — Dave Ramsey among them — argue that riders like accidental death are low-value extras. That’s a defensible opinion, not a settled fact. Riders such as chronic illness or waiver of premium can be genuinely worthwhile depending on your circumstances. Read each rider’s cost and trigger conditions, then decide for yourself.
Filing a Knights of Columbus death claim
For a comparison shopper, claims handling is the part that actually matters — it’s the promise behind the premium.
The process itself is standard. A beneficiary submits a claim form along with a certified death certificate. The company verifies the coverage and pays the benefit. How long it takes depends on whether the paperwork is complete and whether the insurer needs to investigate further. To file a Knights of Columbus death claim, a beneficiary can call the insurance line at 1-800-380-9995 or contact the deceased member’s field agent. Keep the policy number and the agent’s contact details somewhere your family can actually find them — that single step removes most of the delay.
A practical tip from years of watching estates get settled: tell your beneficiaries which insurer holds the policy and where the documents live. Families lose more time hunting for paperwork than insurers lose processing it.
Knights of Columbus insurance customer service and account access
This is the cluster of questions real searchers type — customer service, phone number, policy lookup, login — so here are clear answers.
Phone numbers
For insurance questions, claims, and policy servicing, the Knights of Columbus insurance phone number is 1-800-380-9995. The general headquarters line is 203-752-4000, and the mailing address is 1 Columbus Plaza, New Haven, CT 06510. For most insurance matters, members are routed through their assigned field agent first.
Knights of Columbus policy lookup and login
Account access has changed, and several older reviews describe a portal that no longer exists. The Order discontinued its previous Online Member portal and the Knights.net site as of July 1, 2023, and moved members onto a newer sign-in system. Current members sign in through the official member portal linked from kofc.org, where they can review membership details and access documents. For a policy lookup, bill payment, or beneficiary change, the most reliable route is still the official site’s sign-in page or a direct call to the insurance line. If you’re hunting for a “free Knights of Columbus policy lookup” tool from a third party, treat it with caution — legitimate policy details come only from the insurer itself.
Two-track service
Service runs on two tracks. Local field agents handle policy reviews, updates, and new applications. Headquarters in New Haven handles claims, billing, and major servicing.
The honest part about customer service
Strong financials don’t automatically mean smooth service, and you deserve the unvarnished picture.
Independent customer reviews are mixed. On one consumer review platform, Knights of Columbus carries a low average star rating across a modest number of reviews — though a majority of those reviewers still said they’d recommend the company. The recurring complaints are worth knowing. Some beneficiaries describe slow or unresponsive field agents after a death. Some annuity holders report heavy paperwork demands and delays when trying to access funds. Others simply wish the digital self-service were better.
Positive reviews exist too, and they tend to single out individual agents who were caring and quick, plus the dividends and the faith alignment.
The pattern I see is consistent: when your local field agent is good, the experience is good; when that one relationship breaks down, service can stall, because the whole model leans on that single person. That’s a structural risk of an agent-based system, and it’s fair to weigh against the convenience of a large insurer’s centralized service desk.
How to find a Knights of Columbus agent near me
Every Knights policy is sold through a field agent, and every agent is a member of the Order. There are more than 900 of them across the U.S. and Canada.
The cleanest way to find one is the agent locator on the official site, kofc.org — enter your ZIP code and it connects you with the field agent for your area. You can also ask at your local council. When you meet, bring proof of identity, a current list of medications, and a sense of how much coverage you need. Ask the agent for a written illustration and the policy’s dividend history before you commit to anything, and don’t be shy about comparing that illustration against quotes from other carriers.
Hidden details most reviews skip
This is where a careful review earns its place. Each of these is verified, and each is something competing pages routinely leave out.
The rating is A+, not A++. Covered above, but it belongs on this list too. If a review still says A++, treat the rest of it with caution.
You pay a membership due on top of premiums. It’s small, but it’s real, and an accurate cost comparison has to include it.
There are no instant online quotes. Every quote runs through a field agent. For some buyers that’s a warm, helpful experience; for others it’s friction. Either way, you can’t price-shop the Knights at midnight the way you can shop a digital insurer.
The old member portal was retired. The previous Online Member portal closed in mid-2023. Reviews still describing that exact portal are working from stale information.
Older long-term care policies carried a “usual and customary” clause. Industry analysis of past Knights long-term care contracts found language letting the insurer decide whether a charge was “usual and customary,” which could shrink a payout. According to that analysis, current Knights long-term care policies have dropped this wording — a real improvement. The lesson: confirm you’re reviewing the latest contract version, not an old one.
Knights long-term care policies aren’t partnership-certified. Partnership certification helps policyholders protect assets and qualify for Medicaid more easily once benefits run out. Its absence is a genuine limitation against some competitors if long-term care is your priority.
The “$500 rule” has nothing to do with insurance. People search this phrase next to the company name and get no real answer. The “$500 rule” is Section 122(b) of the Laws of the Knights of Columbus — an internal council governance rule. It requires that any council expenditure of $500.01 or more be put in written notice to all council members before approval. It’s about fraternal accountability, not your policy.
Knights of Columbus vs. open-market insurers
Here’s the heart of it for anyone comparing carriers. Both sides, plainly.
Strengths
Financial strength is elite — A+ from AM Best and AA+ from S&P put it among the safest homes for a long-term contract. The participating whole life is a strong, guaranteed product with a long dividend history. The fraternal model means premiums fund charity and values-screened investing rather than shareholder payouts. And members get fraternal benefits no commercial insurer offers, such as certain guaranteed coverage for uninsurable children and benefits tied to a stillbirth or miscarriage.
Weaknesses
Eligibility is the obvious one — closed to non-Catholics and to women as primary members. There are no instant online quotes; everything goes through an agent. The product shelf is narrower than a big carrier’s, with no indexed or variable universal life. Customer service reviews are mixed and depend heavily on your individual agent. And the old self-service portal is gone, with the replacement still maturing.
Side-by-side
| Factor | Knights of Columbus | Typical open-market insurer |
|---|---|---|
| Financial strength | A+ (AM Best), AA+ (S&P) | Varies; many strong mutuals at A or better |
| Eligibility | Catholic men and their families | Open to the general public |
| Instant online quotes | No | Often yes |
| Product range | Term, whole, universal, annuities, LTC | Broader, including IUL and VUL |
| Sales model | Field agents who are members | Online, captive agents, or independent brokers |
| Mission | Charity and Catholic values | Profit or policyholder returns |
| Best for | Eligible Catholics wanting guaranteed coverage | Everyone, especially digital and price-first buyers |
Who beats them, and at what
If you want a term quote in twenty minutes with no membership, digital-first insurers like Haven Life and Ethos win on speed. If you want the widest product menu — indexed universal life, variable universal life — Northwestern Mutual, MassMutual, and Prudential carry more. If you simply want the cheapest term rate, an independent broker shopping many carriers (Dave Ramsey’s endorsed partner Zander Insurance is the well-known example) will usually find it. And if centralized, 24/7 service matters more to you than a personal relationship, a large national carrier has the bigger support operation.
How to shop it the right way
If you qualify, get a Knights illustration. Then get at least two open-market quotes for the exact same product type, term length, and coverage amount. Compare guaranteed values, dividend assumptions, rider costs, and surrender charges — not just the headline premium. Running the comparison quotes through an independent broker keeps the process honest, since that broker isn’t tied to any one carrier.
Is Knights of Columbus insurance worth it?
Here’s my unfiltered take after going through the primary sources.
Knights of Columbus Insurance is a genuinely strong life insurer wrapped inside a closed club. The financial strength is real, the whole life product is solid, and the mission means something to the people it serves. For a practicing Catholic man who’s already a member, or happy to become one, it deserves a serious quote — especially for permanent coverage and conservative annuities.
But it was never built to be a “best for everyone” insurer, and it doesn’t claim to be. If you can’t join, the decision is already made. If you can join but you value online speed, the widest product range, or the rock-bottom term price, an open-market carrier or an independent broker will probably serve you better.
My bottom line: treat Knights of Columbus as one quote in a comparison of three — never as a default. If you qualify and the illustration beats your other two quotes on guaranteed value, buy with confidence. If it doesn’t, you’ve lost nothing by checking. The mission is admirable, but a policy still has to earn its place on the numbers.
Frequently asked questions
What types of insurance does Knights of Columbus offer?
Knights of Columbus offers term life, whole life, and universal life insurance, plus fixed annuities, long-term care insurance, and disability income insurance. Whole life is its signature product. It does not sell indexed or variable universal life.
Do you have to be Catholic to get Knights of Columbus insurance?
Yes. To buy a policy as the primary insured, you must be a member of the Order, which requires being a practicing Catholic man aged 18 or older. Eligible spouses and children can be covered through the member.
Can non-Catholics purchase Knights of Columbus insurance?
No. Non-Catholics cannot join the Order, so they cannot buy a policy. Non-Catholics should compare open-market insurers, which have no faith requirement.
Is Knights of Columbus a good insurance company?
For eligible members, yes. It holds an A+ (Superior) rating from AM Best and AA+ from S&P Global, and it has made Forbes’ “America’s Best Insurance Companies” list. The main drawbacks are restricted eligibility, no instant online quotes, and mixed customer service reviews.
What is the AM Best rating of Knights of Columbus?
It is A+ (Superior), affirmed November 14, 2025. Many older articles still say A++. That is outdated — AM Best downgraded the company from A++ to A+ in January 2018 after changing its methodology.
How much does Knights of Columbus life insurance cost?
Knights of Columbus does not publish rate tables, so an exact cost requires an agent illustration. Pricing depends on age, health, tobacco use, policy type, and coverage amount. Term is the cheapest option; whole life costs several times more for the same death benefit.
How much does a $1,000,000 life insurance policy cost per month?
On the open market, 2025–2026 data places a $1,000,000 20-year term policy at roughly $50 to $110 per month for a healthy adult, rising steeply with age and for smokers. Use this as a benchmark for any quote you receive.
How much does a $100,000 life insurance policy cost a month?
For a healthy applicant in their 30s, a $100,000 term policy can often cost well under $20 per month on the open market. Permanent coverage for the same amount costs considerably more.
What is the $500 rule for Knights of Columbus?
The “$500 rule” is Section 122(b) of the Laws of the Knights of Columbus. It is an internal council governance rule, not an insurance rule. It requires written notice to all council members before any council expenditure of $500.01 or more is approved.
Who does Dave Ramsey recommend for life insurance?
Dave Ramsey recommends term life insurance and endorses Zander Insurance — an independent agency he trusts to shop term rates across multiple carriers. He generally advises against cash-value policies.
What company does Dave Ramsey recommend for life insurance?
Ramsey’s endorsed partner is Zander Insurance, a Nashville-based independent agency that sells term life exclusively and shops several top-rated carriers on a client’s behalf.
What does Colonial Penn give you for $9.95 a month?
Colonial Penn’s $9.95 plan buys one “unit” of guaranteed-acceptance whole life coverage. The actual death benefit per unit depends on your age and gender and is often only a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars. The plan also has a two-year waiting period for natural-cause deaths.
Can I get long-term care insurance through Knights of Columbus?
Yes, but only members and their spouses can buy it, and it is not the Order’s primary focus. Note that Knights long-term care policies are not partnership-certified, and older contracts contained a “usual and customary” clause that newer ones have removed.
Is Knights of Columbus insurance available in Canada?
Yes. Knights of Columbus insurance solutions are available to eligible members in both the United States and Canada, served by a field force of more than 900 agents. AM Best also rates the Canadian branch.
How do I look up my Knights of Columbus policy?
Members can review policy details by signing in through the official member portal on kofc.org or by calling the insurance line at 1-800-380-9995. The Order retired its previous Online Member portal in mid-2023 and moved to a newer sign-in system. Be cautious of third-party “free policy lookup” tools — legitimate details come only from the insurer.
How can I contact Knights of Columbus customer service?
For insurance and policy servicing, call 1-800-380-9995. The general headquarters line is 203-752-4000, and the mailing address is 1 Columbus Plaza, New Haven, CT 06510. For most insurance matters, you can also contact your local field agent directly.
How do I file a Knights of Columbus death claim?
A beneficiary files by contacting the insurance line at 1-800-380-9995 or the deceased member’s field agent. Required documents typically include a certified death certificate and a claim form. Having the policy number ready speeds the process considerably.
Where can I find a Knights of Columbus agent near me?
Use the agent locator on kofc.org by entering your ZIP code, or ask at your local council. All Knights of Columbus field agents are members of the Order.
How do I apply for a Knights of Columbus insurance policy?
First join the Order if you are eligible, then contact a field agent for a needs analysis and quote. The agent handles the application, schedules any required medical exam, and helps you compare term and permanent options.
Are medical exams required for Knights of Columbus policies?
It depends on the coverage amount, your age, and your health. Larger policies usually require an exam. Smaller amounts may use simplified underwriting, and the graded final expense policy requires no exam at all.
What riders are available on Knights of Columbus policies?
Common riders include accidental death, chronic illness, terminal illness accelerated benefit, term conversion, children’s term, disability waiver of premium, and the guaranteed purchase option.
Can I convert a Knights of Columbus term policy to permanent coverage?
Yes. Most Knights term policies include a conversion feature that lets you convert to permanent coverage without proving insurability again, subject to the policy’s eligibility timelines.
What do Knights of Columbus insurance reviews commonly praise?
Positive reviews most often cite the strong financial ratings, the dividend history on whole life policies, the faith alignment, and helpful individual field agents.
What common concerns appear in Knights of Columbus reviews?
Recurring concerns include slow or unresponsive service after a claim, heavy paperwork when accessing annuity funds, limited online self-service, and the Catholic membership requirement itself.
What makes Knights of Columbus a trusted insurance provider?
Its long history since 1882, its A+ (Superior) AM Best rating, its AA+ S&P rating, its Forbes recognition, and a not-for-profit fraternal structure that returns earnings to members and charity rather than shareholders.
Sources
- AM Best — Knights of Columbus Company Profile and rating affirmation (November 14, 2025): https://ratings.ambest.com
- AM Best press release, “AM Best Affirms Credit Ratings of Knights of Columbus”: https://www.businesswire.com
- Knights of Columbus — official insurance FAQ: https://www.kofc.org/en/what-we-do/insurance/frequently-asked-questions.html
- Knights of Columbus — official site (financials, agent count, contact details): https://www.kofc.org
- Knights of Columbus — Online Membership portal notice: https://www.kofc.org/en/for-members/online-membership.html
- Knights of Columbus, Wikipedia (history and membership figures): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_Columbus
- LTC News — Knights of Columbus Long-Term Care review: https://www.ltcnews.com
- Knights of Columbus Section 122(b) “$500 Rule” guidance (Officers Desk Reference): https://ockc.net/500-rule/
- Guardian and MoneyGeek — term life insurance rate data (2025–2026): https://www.guardianlife.com and https://www.moneygeek.com
- Ramsey Solutions and Zander Insurance — term life recommendations: https://www.ramseysolutions.com and https://www.zanderins.com
- Colonial Penn — official guaranteed acceptance whole life product page: https://colonialpenn.com
By Shahinuzzaman — full-time financial writer with 16 years in the banking and insurance industry. He researches every company straight from primary sources: official filings, state insurance department records, BBB data, financial rating agencies, and verified customer reviews. He takes no payment from the companies he covers. Found an outdated figure or have a correction? Reach out — this page gets updated whenever a reader sends better information..
Last Fact Checked: May 2026
