Insurance for Veterans 2026: Life, Health, Auto and Home Coverage Explained

• Insurance for Veterans at a Glance
• Life Insurance for Service Members and Veterans
• Health Insurance: TRICARE, VA Health Care and CHAMPVA
• Dental and Vision Insurance
• Auto Insurance for Military and Veterans
• Homeowners Insurance for Veterans
• Renters Insurance for Military Families
• Your Insurance Checklist When You Leave the Military
• How to Compare Insurance Quotes
• What to Watch Out For
• Frequently Asked Questions

Insurance for veterans and military families comes from three places: the military and VA, which offer life and health coverage you won’t find anywhere else; federal programs for dental and vision; and private companies, which sell everything else, from car insurance to coverage for the house you bought with a VA loan. Knowing which is which keeps you from overpaying for coverage you already have, and from going without coverage you assumed the military provided.

This guide walks through each type of insurance in 2026: what you get through service, what changes when you leave, and how to shop the coverage you have to buy yourself.

Insurance for Veterans at a Glance

The life and health rows are where military benefits do most of the work. The auto and home rows are where you shop, and where comparing quotes matters most. Our guide to VA benefits for veterans covers the rest of what you earned through service.

Life Insurance for Service Members and Veterans

SGLI: Life Insurance While You Serve

Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance covers active-duty members, Ready Reserve and National Guard members in a drilling unit, cadets and midshipmen, and members of the NOAA and Public Health Service commissioned corps. You can carry up to $500,000 in $50,000 increments. The premium is 5 cents per $1,000 of coverage, plus $1 a month for traumatic injury protection (TSGLI), so the maximum costs $26 a month, deducted from your pay (VA SGLI page).

Family coverage comes through FSGLI. A spouse can be covered for up to $100,000, never more than your own SGLI amount, with a premium that rises with the spouse’s age. Each dependent child is covered for $10,000 at no cost (VA FSGLI page).

VGLI: Keeping Coverage After You Separate

SGLI continues for 120 days after you separate at no cost. After that it ends unless you convert it. Veterans’ Group Life Insurance lets you keep between $10,000 and $500,000 of coverage for life, as long as you pay the premiums. Apply within 1 year and 120 days of leaving the military; apply within the first 240 days and there is no health review (VA VGLI page).

VGLI premiums depend only on your age and the coverage amount, not on your health, gender or tobacco use. VA’s rates as of July 1, 2025 for $500,000 of coverage:

Because the price climbs steeply after 50, VGLI is often a bridge rather than a lifetime plan. Our comparison of VGLI vs. private life insurance explains when a private term policy costs less for a healthy veteran, and when VGLI’s no-health-questions guarantee is worth more.

VALife: Guaranteed Coverage With a Service-Connected Rating

If you have any VA service-connected disability rating, even 0%, and you’re 80 or younger, you can buy VA Life Insurance (VALife). It’s whole life coverage of up to $40,000 in $10,000 increments, with guaranteed acceptance. Full coverage starts two years after you apply; if you die during that waiting period, your beneficiaries get the premiums you paid plus interest (VA VALife page). Our VALife guide covers premiums and how it fits alongside VGLI.

VMLI: Mortgage Life Insurance for Adapted Homes

Veterans with severe service-connected disabilities who received a Specially Adapted Housing grant can buy up to $200,000 of Veterans’ Mortgage Life Insurance, paid directly to the lender. You must hold the title, have a mortgage and apply before your 70th birthday (VA VMLI page). The SAH grant guide explains who qualifies for the grant itself.

Private Life Insurance

Private term life insurance is the most common way to add coverage on top of SGLI or VGLI, or to replace VGLI once its price rises. Our full guide to life insurance for veterans and military families compares the options, and the life insurance calculator estimates how much coverage your family would need.

Health Insurance: TRICARE, VA Health Care and CHAMPVA

Health coverage is the benefit most veterans and families already have, often from more than one source. The right one depends on your status:

• TRICARE covers active-duty members, their families, retirees and retirees’ families. Costs depend on your plan and status; our TRICARE plans comparison lays out each plan, and TRICARE costs has the current fees.
• VA health care covers veterans who enroll and qualify. It isn’t health insurance for your family; it covers the veteran. See how VA health care enrollment works and the priority groups that set what you pay.
• CHAMPVA covers the spouse or child of a veteran rated permanently and totally disabled from a service-connected condition, and certain surviving spouses and children. VA shares the cost of covered care with you, and you can’t use it if you’re eligible for TRICARE (VA CHAMPVA page). Our CHAMPVA guide covers eligibility and costs.

Many veterans who don’t retire from the military leave with no TRICARE eligibility at all. If you’re not enrolled in VA health care and don’t have coverage through a job, check your options before your transitional coverage ends rather than after.

Dental and Vision Insurance

Military health coverage handles dental and vision differently from medical care, and the rules change when you retire (TRICARE dental plans):

• Active-duty family members can buy the TRICARE Dental Program, a voluntary dental insurance plan.
• Retirees and their families buy dental and vision coverage through FEDVIP, which replaced the TRICARE Retiree Dental Program in 2019 (OPM FEDVIP page). You enroll during the Federal Benefits Open Season in November and December, or after a qualifying life event.
• Eye exams: TRICARE covers annual routine eye exams for active-duty family members regardless of plan. Retirees on TRICARE Prime get a routine exam every two years, while TRICARE Select and TRICARE For Life don’t cover routine eye exams (TRICARE vision coverage).

Some veterans also qualify for dental care through VA, depending on their rating and other factors. Our guide to VA dental eligibility classes explains who does.

Auto Insurance for Military and Veterans

The military doesn’t provide car insurance, so every service member and veteran buys it from a private company. A few things make the military version different:

• Deployments: if your car will sit in storage, ask your insurer whether it offers reduced coverage while it’s parked. Keeping some coverage avoids a gap that can raise your rates later.
• PCS moves: rates change with the ZIP code, and moving overseas usually means a different policy. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act lets you end a vehicle lease early in some deployment and PCS situations (50 U.S.C. 3955); our SCRA and MLA guide covers the details.
• Discounts: military service history may qualify you for discounts with some carriers. Which carriers, and who counts (active duty, Guard, Reserve, retirees or all veterans), varies by company and state.

Our guide to auto insurance for military and veterans covers deployment, storage, overseas coverage and military discounts in detail, and lets you compare quotes from multiple companies in minutes.

Homeowners Insurance for Veterans

VA doesn’t sell homeowners insurance, but if you buy with a VA loan your lender must require it: under 38 CFR 36.4329, the home securing a VA loan has to be insured against hazards, and flood insurance is required if the home sits in a FEMA special flood hazard area. Standard homeowners policies don’t cover flood.

Military life adds two more wrinkles. A deployment can leave a home empty long enough to trigger a policy’s vacancy rules, and a PCS move can turn your home into a rental, which usually calls for a landlord (dwelling) policy instead of a homeowners policy.

Our guide to home insurance for veterans covers policy types, VA loan requirements, flood coverage, vacancy clauses and renting out your home after a PCS. If you’re still shopping for the house, the VA loan guide explains how zero-down financing works.

Renters Insurance for Military Families

Renters insurance covers your belongings, your liability and extra living costs if a covered loss makes your home unlivable. The landlord’s policy covers the building, not your things. That applies off base and, in most cases, in privatized base housing too, so read your lease to see what the housing company requires and what it covers.

Renters coverage also matters during a PCS. Damage or loss in a government-arranged move goes through the military claims process first (Military OneSource moving claims guide), and a renters policy may help with what that process doesn’t cover. Our PCS guide walks through the move itself.

Your Insurance Checklist When You Leave the Military

Most coverage gaps happen in the months after separation, when military coverage ends on its own schedule and nothing replaces it automatically. Work through these before your last day, not after:

• Life insurance: SGLI ends 120 days after you separate. Decide whether to convert to VGLI, buy private coverage or both. Applying for VGLI within 240 days avoids a health review; the final deadline is 1 year and 120 days (VA VGLI page).
• Health coverage: unless you retire, TRICARE eligibility ends. Line up VA health care, an employer plan or marketplace coverage before your military coverage stops, and ask TRICARE whether you qualify for any temporary transitional coverage.
• Dental and vision: active-duty family dental coverage ends with active duty. Retirees buy dental and vision through FEDVIP, during Federal Benefits Open Season or after a qualifying life event.
• Your rating: once VA assigns a service-connected rating, even 0%, you can apply for VALife at any time if you’re 80 or younger. A rating also affects your VA health care priority group.
• Car and home: a move after separation is a good time to compare auto and home quotes, because your rate is tied to your new address.

Spouses should check their own coverage at the same time. FSGLI spouse coverage ends when the service member’s SGLI ends, and a spouse who relied on TRICARE needs a new health plan unless the service member retired.

How to Compare Insurance Quotes

For the coverage you buy yourself, the price difference between companies can be large for the same coverage. Rates vary significantly by carrier, and if you haven’t compared in a while, you could be paying more than you need to. To compare fairly:

• Match the coverage. Use the same liability limits, deductibles and add-ons on every quote, or a quote that looks low may simply be the thinnest policy.
• Ask about military discounts. Military service history may qualify you for discounts with some carriers; ask each one what it offers and who qualifies.
• Bundle where it fits. Bundling home and auto could save you money with some companies. Compare the bundle against separate policies.
• Check the company, not just the price. Look at how a company handles claims and whether it writes policies in your state.
• Recheck after a PCS. A new ZIP code is a new price. Compare again after every move.

Insurance availability is subject to location and applicable underwriting standards. Each insurer has sole financial responsibility for its own products. Not all carriers operate in all states.

What to Watch Out For

Service members and veterans are frequent targets of high-pressure financial marketing. A few warning signs apply to any insurance offer: claims that a policy is “official,” “government-backed” or “VA-approved” (VA endorses no private insurer), pressure to decide today, and requests for your Social Security number before you’ve seen a quote. Help with VA benefits, including VA life insurance, is available at no cost from accredited representatives and from VA itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

This article is provided by USMilitary.org, an independent educational resource. We are not affiliated with the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs or any government agency, and we are not an insurance company or agency. USMilitary.org may be paid when you compare quotes through our partner, a licensed insurance agency. Coverage, discounts and prices vary by state, insurer and individual circumstances; confirm terms with the insurer before you buy. Actual savings may vary depending on state of residence, individual circumstances, coverage selections, and insurance provider. Savings and lowest rates do not reflect typical results.