What You Should Know About Life Insurance:
Choosing a Life Insurance Company

After you have thought about your financial needs and have become familiar with the basic types of life insurance, you will choose a company and agent.

Lots of companies sell life insurance. You can buy life insurance through an agent or broker like many people do, or buy a policy directly from a company. Much of the information we provide applies to whatever way you decide to buy life insurance.

Insurance Company’s Financial Condition

First, check a company’s financial condition before purchasing a policy. You can do this in a number of ways:

  • ask the agent
  • request the info from your state’s insurance commission
  • check with insurance rating services that rate the financial strength of companies (covered in next section)
  • look up ratings in large public or business libraries

Insurance Rating Services

Five major companies rate life insurance companies. Some provide free ratings and analysis online, some charge a fee.

Not all insurance companies are rated by each agency.

I did not provide direct links to the ratings for each site because, unfortunately, sites change the links often. Nor did I provide pricing info because it changes also. In general, look for the word “ratings” or “insurance” in their navigation menus.

You can quickly get bogged down (or overwhelmed) by trying to analyze the ratings and financial condition of multiple companies.

important info! In general, the company you are considering should have been rated in the top one or two rankings by at least three different rating services.