Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Reviews

My 95-year-old mother purchased a $10,000 annuity (**) from Northwestern Mutual back on 9/29/09. Its ROI from inception to 2024 was less than 1% per year. On 7/24/24, the annuity was valued at $11,428.45. At purchase, my mother was the annuant, paid the $10,086, while her funeral director was listed as owner. Out of 40 investment choices, the NM salesperson sold my then 79-year-old mom one choice, i.e., ‘ zero variability’ - the lowest, likely rate of return GIF available was encouraged. Then for 15 years, my mother had zero contact from NM and the funeral director contact consisted of only periodic statements. Is this the “personalized planning” you reference??

The so called advisor is only interested in big accounts. There has been no service. I wanted something done recently. One of his inept kiss-ups yaps at me that I'm the problem. No, 'fraid not. I wanted money transferred from my retirement account so I'll have to figure out something else. Another problem is people don't answer the phone.

Almost impossible to cancel a policy. Run around for months the first time. First cancellation was via email to them, but a month later they say it must be verbal. After escalating the manager says email could be fraudulent and it must be voice - ridiculous, felt like I was back in the 80’s. Going on 6 weeks for cancelling another policy. Back and forth with local agent offering little service - all I need is a simple form emailed to me and the agent tells me to call back next week. I call back and the agent says it’s probably faster to contact the home office - wow. Home office gives me the run around as well. I’ve been a client for 25 years. Life and LTD policies. Stay away from Northwestern Mutual.

Started doing business with this company fifty plus years ago. They we fine for the first twenty years, and after that they went right in the toilet. Awful agents, horrible customer service. When you try to get YOUR money back all they do is jack you around. I would NEVER do business with the company again. Should be zero stars.

Buyer beware- if you purchase cash surrender life insurance products from this unethical company, they will take 6 months to process the surrender and then another 6 months before disbursing the funds. That is straight up criminal. No other insurance company takes this long. I submitted the surrender request in August of 2024. They FINALLY processed it February 13, 2025 and now inform me that they will defer the disbursement of the proceeds for 6 more months!

Ridiculous company! They are abusive when it comes to giving you your money back. They treat you like an idiot. The lack of punishment allows them to use and abuse those who once trusted them to buy their product. Do not buy life insurance from them. When it comes to selling, it is a beautiful story, when it comes to returning it is a horror story.

Customer service was great until it wasn’t - or should I say, until I wanted to access my funds. It took weeks and weeks of emailing back and forth, yelling at my advisor and his assistant and finally needed me to speak with the Compliance Officer to attempt to rectify the situation. This occurred April 16th 2024 and as of June 6th is still not resolved.

Part of the planning I was ready to do on spot was consolidate 401ks and Roths as it does make sense to have those all in one location vs. spread out. Permanent life insurance I had never heard of before but was interested in because it is able to be used while still alive (at this moment, I do not project to have typical beneficiaries such as children in my older years). Due to my current goal of paying off my house early, I was curious what those numbers would look like if the permanent life insurance didn't get started for 8-10 more years.

It is impressive that Northwestern Mutual hired a person that participated in a fraud where I am one of the multiple victims. Renato ** brought me to Studio Kaza to execute a project where he placed a poor elaborated contract, lie to me and my clients multiple times, charged my clients to submit payments that still lost! It was more than a year ago and I continue suffering the consequences of this fraud.

I have been a client of Northwestern Mutual for over 14 years. Year over year I have received exceptional service. My financial advisor is extremely knowledgeable and provides me with an updated financial plan each time we meet, which provides me security knowing that I am on track for achieving my lifelong financial goals.