Whether or not it's
legal for a guaranteed issue life insurance policy to charge total premiums in excess of the death benefit would ultimately depend on which state you live in seeing as how insurance is regulated at the state level.
A graded death benefit is a clause written into all guaranteed issue life insurance policy which will state that in
order for your guaranteed issue life insurance policy to pay a death benefit for dying of «natural causes» you must first «outlive» the graded death benefit period.