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How we rate carriers
Short version. We do not rate them. We publish what a rating agency says, what the product does, and the date we checked, then leave the judgment to you.
Why there are no stars
Almost every insurance comparison site scores companies out of five. Those scores are assembled from weightings the site chose, applied to criteria the site chose, and the result looks like a measurement while being an opinion. On a site run by a licensed agent who earns a commission, that is not a defensible thing to publish.
So the tables carry only two kinds of thing. A published rating from a third party, or a product fact you can check against the carrier’s own material.
What each column is
| Column | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| AM Best | The financial strength rating published by AM Best, the rating agency that specialises in insurance. Read from AM Best or the carrier’s own disclosure, never from another comparison site. |
| Confirmed | The month we last read that rating from source. Ratings move, so a rating without a date is close to useless. |
| Issue ages | The age band the carrier will write at, from its product material. |
| Day one | Whether a level benefit policy is available, meaning one that pays the full amount from the first day for any cause. Whether you personally get offered it depends on your health answers. |
| Best suited to | The one genuinely subjective column, and it is labelled as such. It is a working agent’s view of where each carrier tends to be competitive. It is not a promise about your application. |
The conflict of interest, stated plainly
We earn a commission when a policy is placed, and commission rates differ between carriers. Anyone rating companies they are paid by has a conflict, and the honest response is to say so and then to constrain what we publish so the conflict cannot express itself.
That is why no column on the carrier page is a number we invented. It is also why the table shows a B++ rating as B++ rather than rounding it up or leaving that carrier off. The full compensation disclosure is on the disclosures page.
What we deliberately do not publish
- Star ratings or a score out of ten.
- Sample premiums presented as quotes. Rates are filed by state and by age, and a table cannot know your health.
- Claims that a named carrier accepts or declines a named medical condition. Underwriting changes constantly and a wrong claim here would cost somebody a policy.
- Customer review counts or testimonial scores we cannot verify.
Coverage of this list
The first table is every carrier we hold an appointment with, 9 of them, not a selection of the flattering ones. The second is 2 widely advertised carriers people ask about, which we do not represent, marked as such on the page.
Corrections
If a rating here is out of date, we would rather be told than not. Ratings are rechecked at least annually and whenever AM Best publishes an action on a carrier we represent.