Insurance Companies Listings and Ratings Guide For Insurance Agents & Brokers
Here is the newest, revised version of the best insurance companies listings. These are compiled in a top 100 ratings guide format. The listings are in alphabetical order helping insurance agents & brokers locate an insurer. Find out how your opinion compares. How can you possibly rate an insurance company? I will mention briefly the various ways, show you the method I is used for this article, and why.
BY NUMBER OF AGENTS
This ratings guide listing method evaluates the insurer by the sheer number of insurance agents & brokers currently licensed and under contract. with carrier. I feel this evaluation to be worthless for a multitude of reasons. First of all there are a number of career health and life insurance agencies that have thousands of representatives. However, of these,up to 80% of the total agents are relatively new in attempting to establish credibility in the industry. Four years down the line only 6% of many an insurance company agency force will maintain enough production to stay career representatives.
Moreover, my findings uncover inaccuracy of this method due to licensing renewal process state insurance departments impose on the insurer. Most state departments of insurance send the renewal report forms on a yearly basis. There is a fee to be paid by each ins agent renewed. What makes it difficult is the variation of different paperwork procedures by individual states for removing non-active ins reps. The paperwork consists of costly, time consuming forms and procedures for the insurance company to make any changes. Renewing all the sales representatives is often cheaper, and thus the route the insurer frequently takes. This also gives the insurance company bragging rights to how many sales people write for them.
Personally I was shown in state insurance department records as licensed for 11 years after I wrote my last case.
INSURANCE CO FINANCIAL RANKING LISTINGS
There are four or five top independent firms that employ this insurer rating of a company based on a multitude of financial factors. A lot has to do with projecting the financial stability of the insurer. This is accomplished by closely dissecting past and present financial history. It covers how the insurer investments perform, and the rate of return. An insurance evaluation also takes in consideration the amount of cash on hand, and how much exists in reserves to pay present and future claims.
There is a consensus among life insurance association members into believing that the highest rated insurers are the best of the bunch. Yet association members make up less than 12% of the total producer base. The other insurance agents and brokers, (the majority), do not agree that these are always the best ones to use for their client's needs. Logic tells you that a newer quality insurer does not have past history to start out top ranked. In my situation, clients bought what I presented them. Nearly half the time it was NOT the highest rated company by the rating firms. I however sold the client what their emotional needs demanded. Many past insurance companies with rankings in the best 100 later financially failed, and still frequently do in today's world.
BY RANKING OF PREMIUMS COLLECTED
This is a very common type of insurance company listing & ranking to produce. Insurance companies are rated by total number of premiums they collected that year. It seems rather unfair to mix annuity premiums in with all dollars collected. Producers know it is easier to sell a $20,000 annuity than a $20,000 premium term insurance policy. The other fault I find with using total premiums collected is with who actually contributed a chunk of the premiums collected. With some companies an enormous amount of these premiums were not collected by the average sales person. A lot of institutional buyers directly bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of annuity premiums.
BY RATINGS IMPORTANT TO HEALTH & LIFE SELLERS
This is my way. As fair and balanced from an sales representative perspective as feasible. Premiums are collected from the 1,500,000 agents, trying to make a living by selling insurance policies in this industry. Often these sales are done one by one. Plus, of this 450,00 independent brokers, semi-independent agents and some career reps write, depending on which company, 50% to 100% of that insurance co business.
This rankings method is imposed because I find the insurance companies listing is intended to be a beneficial directory. One that independent brokers, semi-independent representatives, along with some career reps can turn to. This is a guide directory to other insurers that you may consider writing production for.
The insurance companies listing and ratings guide to the top 100 is purposely placed in alphabetical order instead of by premium or financial data. You may not agree completely with the listing, because we have left in some companies with a strong percentage of business sold in annuities, and investment products.
In the eyes of a typical health and life broker, this guide is of health and life insurance companies is about as accurate as possible.
1. Aetna 2. AIG Life Insurance Company** 3. Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America 4. American Family Life Assurance Co of Columbus 5. American Fidelity Assurance Company 6. American General Life and Accident INS Co** 7. American General Life Insurance Co** 8. American Income 9. American Memorial 10. American National Life 11. Americo Financial Life And Annuity 12. Anthem Blue Cross 13 Aurora National Assurance 14 Aviva Life and Annuity Company 15. AXA Equitable 16.Bankers Life and Casualty Company 17. Banner 18. Beneficial Life 19. C.M. Life Ins 20. Colonial Life & Accident 21. Columbus Life 22. Conseco Life 23. Farmers New World 24. First-Penn Pacific 25.Forethought 26. General American 27. Genworth 28. Gerber 29. Great American 30. Great-West Life & Annuity 31. Guardian 32. Hartford Life and Accident Ins Company 33. Hartford 34. Homesteaders 35. Indianapolis Life 36. ING 37. Jackson National 38. John Hancock 39. John Hancock Life Insurance Company USA 40.. Kansas City Life 41.. Lafayette 42.. Liberty Life Assurance Co of Boston 43.. Liberty National 44.. Life Ins Company of North America 45. Life Ins Company of the Southwest 46. Life Investors Ins Co of America 47. Lincoln Benefit 48. Lincoln Heritage 49. Lincoln National 50. Massachusetts Mutual 51. Metropolitan 52. Midland National 53. Minnesota Life 54. Monumental Life 55. MONY - America 56. MONY - New York 57. National Guardian 58. National Life 59. New England Life 60. New York Life Ins and Annuity Corporation 61. New York Life 62. North American Co for Life & Health Ins. 63. Northwestern Mutual 64. Ohio National Life 65. OM Financial 66. Pacific Life 67. Penn Mutual 68. Phoenix Life Ins 69. Primerica 70. Principal 71. Protective 72. Provident Life and Accident 73. Pruco 74. Prudential - America 75. Reassure America 76. Reliance Standard 77. ReliaStar 78. Riversource 79. Security Life of Denver y 80. Standard 81. Stonebridge 82. Sun Life and Health 83. Sunset 84. Surety 85. Symetra 86. Transamerica 87. Transamerica Occidental 88. Trustmark 89. U.S. Financial 90. Union Central 91. Union Security 92. United Healthcare 93. United Ins Company of America 94. United Investors 95. United of Omaha 96. United States Life 97. Unum 98. West Coast 99. Western and Southern Life 100. Western Reserve Life Assurance Co of Ohio Note: Sagicor Life, Foresters, and Illinois Mutual should appear on the bottom 3 listings, replacing the companies listed above as #6, 2, and 7.
**AIG Life Insurance Company, American General Life, American General Life and Casualty Comments
This group of companies USED to be one the highest premium generating, and highest ranked insurance companies in the United States. Still, after two massive Federal Bailouts, the future is uncertain. Therefore, AIG Life is no longer deserving of being on this top 100 list guide.
GUIDE TO QUESTIONABLE LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY LISTINGS
The following insurance companies listings often could be included in different types of some top 100 Life ins company rankings IF you were evaluating premiums written. Sometimes the premiums consist of considerable amounts of annuity premiums. Also counted in would be insurers where a large portion of sales do not come from representatives and sales people. Instead it is written by security stock brokerage firms, and independent broker-dealers of variable investment contracts not governed by insurance departments. In other cases, products may be directly strictly toward teachers, the military, or credit unions. In a couple cases, there are companies with pending litigation. A representation of this mix of insurers is listed below:
1. Cuna Mutual 2. Genworth Life and Annuity 3. Harford Life and Annuity y 4. John Hancock Variable Life 5. Mayflower National 6. Metlife - Connecticut 7. Metlife Investors USA 8. MML Bay State 9. Nationwide 10. Nationwide Life & Annuity 11. NYLife of AZ 12. PHL Variable 13. Sun Life Assurance Co of Canada 14. Teachers Ins and Annuity Assoc of America 15. USAA 16. Shenandoah -- financial difficulties
There is a grand total of over 600 Licensed Life/Health Companies "active" in every state of the United States. However, some are not currently writing new business. In addition, there are many active in only one or a few states, so you will find them missing from the top insurance company listings. Most states have a true actual listing count of 220 to 330 life and health home offices currently accepting new cases from licensed agents & brokers.
Advisor's predition. If I choose from the provider listings above, Foresters would be my top pick as the next rising star. Its innovative niche products are starting to create a high demand. Also watch Genworth, its stock value has zoomed and the company is very adaptive to market opportunities.
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