VGLI rates: the full monthly premium chart by age

You pull up your VGLI premium one year and it’s higher than you remember. You didn’t change a thing. A birthday did.

Here’s the bottom line. VGLI premiums rise with age in five-year bands, not every year — and they hold steady between bands. As of July 1, 2025, the maximum $500,000 of coverage costs $30 a month for a veteran 29 or under, $145 a month in your early 50s, and $690 a month from 65 to 69. The full current chart, straight from VA.gov, is right below.

The full VGLI rates chart

Below is the complete VGLI monthly premium chart, effective July 1, 2025, from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Find your age band down the left, then read across to your coverage amount. Coverage is sold in $10,000 increments from $10,000 up to the $500,000 maximum; the columns show the common tiers, and every tier scales straight off the same per-band rate.

A few things worth knowing about reading this chart. Your premium is set by the age band you are in, so a 54-year-old and a 50-year-old pay the same. The rates are perfectly linear within a band — $200,000 costs exactly twice what $100,000 costs — so any increment between the listed columns is easy to work out. And these are the current, lowered rates: effective July 1, 2025 the VA cut VGLI premiums across the board, by an average of about 11%.

Need a coverage amount the chart doesn’t list — say $150,000 or $250,000? Because the pricing is linear, you can read it straight off the $100,000 column. Each $50,000 costs half the $100,000 figure for your band; each $250,000 costs two and a half times it. A 45–49 veteran paying $19 a month for $100,000, for instance, would pay about $47.50 for $250,000. The VA also publishes a per-$10,000 rate for each band, so the exact premium for any covered amount is always available on VA.gov.

How the age-band increases work

VGLI does not raise your premium on a schedule you control — it raises it when you age into the next five-year band. Hold $400,000 in coverage and you pay $56 a month all through your early 40s. The morning you turn 45, that same $400,000 moves to the 45–49 rate of $76 a month. It then holds at $76 until 50, when it steps again. The coverage amount never changed; the band did.

Three points keep the math honest:

• The steps get bigger later. Early bands move in small dollars. From the 60s onward each jump is steep — $425 a month for $500,000 at 60–64 becomes $690 at 65–69, then $1,075 at 70–74.
• The increases are automatic. You don’t reapply and your health is never re-checked. Crossing a birthday is the only trigger.
• Rates top out at 80. The 80-and-over band is the last one; the premium does not climb beyond it.

To see the whole arc, follow $400,000 of VGLI from separation onward. In your late 30s it runs $40 a month. Through your 40s it moves from $56 to $76. In your early 50s it’s $116; by 55–59 it’s $200, and at 60–64 it’s $340. Cross into 65–69 and the same $400,000 is $552 a month; by 70–74 it’s $860. The coverage never changed — only the band did. That gentle-then-steep climb is the shape of every VGLI premium, and it’s why the decision looks different at 40 than it does at 60.

This is the single most important thing to understand about VGLI cost, because it is the opposite of how a private level-term policy behaves — which is the comparison that actually decides what you should do.

VGLI vs. level term: the crossover concept

Here is the difference in one sentence: a level-term policy locks one premium for the whole term, while VGLI steps up every five years. That single contrast drives almost every keep-or-switch decision a veteran faces.

Picture two lines on a graph. A 20- or 30-year level-term policy is a flat line — you qualify once, and the monthly premium you start with is the premium you pay until the term ends. VGLI is a staircase — low at the start, climbing in steps as you move through the age bands. Early on, the VGLI staircase often sits below the flat term line, especially right after separation. Later, the staircase climbs past it. The age where the two lines meet is the crossover.

Where that crossover lands is personal, and it turns on two things: your age and your health. A healthy veteran who can qualify for a low term premium tends to hit the crossover sooner — term wins for longer. A veteran whose health would make private coverage expensive may never reach a crossover that matters, because the term policy they’d be compared against is itself costly or out of reach. We’re not going to print invented term quotes here; the only number that means anything is a real quote run on your actual age and health, set next to the VGLI figure from the chart above.

What VGLI does that nothing else does

VGLI has real, specific advantages that no private policy can fully match, and they are the reason it exists. Lead with these before any cost comparison, because for some veterans they settle the question on their own:

• No health questions inside 240 days. Apply within 240 days of separation and VGLI is issued with no medical questions and no exam — period. Your health, your record, your service-connected conditions: none of it can be used to decline or surcharge you.
• Guaranteed coverage for service-connected conditions. A veteran rated for a serious condition can be hard or expensive to insure privately. VGLI takes them at the same rate as everyone in their age band. For many, this is the whole ballgame.
• It can never be cancelled for health. Once you hold VGLI, it stays in force as long as you pay the premium. A new diagnosis tomorrow changes nothing about your coverage.
• It converts and it grows. You can convert VGLI to a commercial whole-life policy at any time, and request $25,000 increases every five years up to $500,000 (until age 60) — no health questions on those increases.

None of this is a sales pitch for switching. It’s the case for VGLI, stated plainly, so the comparison that follows is a fair one.

When keeping VGLI is clearly the right call

Sometimes the honest answer is keep it, and don’t overthink it. If most of these fit you, VGLI is doing its job and a switch is unlikely to beat it:

• You have a service-connected condition or any health issue that makes private underwriting expensive or uncertain. VGLI’s no-health-questions acceptance is worth real money here.
• You’re still inside the 240-day window and not yet sure of your health picture — VGLI locks coverage now, and you can compare at your own pace afterward.
• Your coverage need is shorter-term — bridging a few years until a mortgage is paid or kids are grown — so the later, steeper age bands never arrive.
• You value certainty over optimization: guaranteed coverage you can’t be removed from, with no medical hoops, is exactly what you want.

This is the part most rate pages skip, so we’ll say it directly: a review that ends in “keep your VGLI” is a successful review. If your coverage is already the right fit, you deserve to hear that plainly — not a reason to change something that’s working.

When comparing private coverage makes sense

Comparing a private policy is worth the ten minutes when the math might favor it — and for a healthy veteran with a long horizon, it often might. Look at the chart again: those later age bands are where VGLI gets expensive. A level-term policy locked in while you’re young and healthy holds its premium flat straight through the years where VGLI is climbing fastest.

A comparison is especially worth running if:

• You’re in good health and can likely qualify for a preferred term rate.
• You need coverage for a long horizon — 20 or 30 years — so you’d otherwise ride VGLI’s staircase deep into the costly bands.
• You want more than $500,000, which VGLI can’t provide.
• You’d like to lock a premium now rather than watch it step up every five years.

That comparison is exactly what our team does, free — a veteran on staff included. We put the VGLI figure from this chart next to real quotes from over 20 A-rated carriers, run on your actual age and health, and tell you which one wins for your situation. If VGLI wins, that’s the answer you’ll get. Walk through it with us in a quick free review of your options.

The enrollment window: 1 year and 120 days

You have 1 year and 120 days from your separation date to enroll in VGLI. Inside that window the rules reward acting early, and missing it closes the door — so the timeline matters as much as the rates:

1. 1.First 240 days: apply with no health questions and no exam. Coverage is guaranteed regardless of your health.
2. 2.Day 241 through the deadline: you can still apply, but you’ll answer health questions to qualify.
3. 3.After 1 year and 120 days: the VGLI option generally ends. This is the same gap we see constantly — SGLI quietly ends at separation, the window passes, and nobody walked the veteran through the choice in time.

If you’re inside the window right now, the move is simple: secure the coverage, then compare at your leisure. You can always convert or replace VGLI later, but you can’t reopen the window once it closes.