Top 10 Best Life Insurance Companies in the U.S. [2024 Update]

As a rule, we at I&E strive to provide the most accurate and objective insight on the web for all things related to life insurance. A good starting point for this lofty goal is to decide who exactly are the best life insurance companies in the USA. This article will attempt to do just that based upon our expertise consisting of a combined 70+ years of experience in the life insurance marketplace.

Interested in getting coverage with a top carrier but don’t want the hassle of an invasive exam? Check out our Best No Exam Life Insurance Companies article for great cash value life insurance policies that don’t require life insurance blood testing.

Before we dive in, there are a few ground rules to point out.

First, this is NOT simply a list of the largest life insurance companies in the U.S. or even the most financially sound. Although that is one of our criteria.

We’re really looking for the top life insurance companies that support our mission, which is to offer consumers the best life insurance options based on each client’s unique need, whether it be to protect income, estate planning, wealth building, and anything related to these objectives.

Thus, some top rated life insurance companies may not appear in this top 10 list because they aren’t, in our humble opinion, deemed attractive enough for our purposes.

I should also point out that although certain companies may be known for certain products or types of permanent life insurance policies, this article will attempt to find the most balanced providers among the top contenders across all types.

In this way, we are seeking to identify those companies offering the most complete set of attractive options for the consumer. This focus on balance distinguishes this article from our previous overview of the top 10 dividend paying whole life insurance companies.

For example, if one of the insurers in this overview is well known for life insurance dividends (whole life) but is a virtual stranger to indexed universal life insurance (IUL) or variable universal life insurance (VUL), this would detract from their overall ranking in this top 10 search.

“Best Boxer” Analogy:  Think of this article as an attempt to rank the top 10 best boxers of all time. We’re not only looking at the grace of Sugar Ray Leonard or the power of Mike Tyson. We’re considering who possesses the best combination of attributes, such as strength, balance, grace, speed, etc., and all related to life insurance coverage.

One last point. There really is no best life insurance company. But there is a best life insurance company for you. The goal would be to align your needs and objectives with the right company that best matches your objectives, which is what we do here at I&E all day long.

Criteria for Deciding our 10 Best Life Insurance Companies

We’ve given some careful thought, having considering your needs and goals as expressed to us by numerous clients and colleagues, as to what makes or breaks a top life insurance company. We’ve narrowed this down into our vetted criteria which is as follows.

1. Financial Size and Strength
2. Range of Policy Options
3. Policy Design Options
4. Captive or Non-Captive
5. Customer Service

One thing to note about our criteria is that we’ve omitted certain factors such as direct recognition vs non-direct recognition or “mutual vs. stock companies” because these factors are most relevant when searching for the best dividend paying whole life insurance companies.

In this case, because we’ve broadened our search to include other types of permanent life insurance, we’ve relaxed these requirements. However, you’ll see from our list that we tend to lean heavily in favor of mutual life insurance companies because we simply believe they are the best option for consumers in most cases.

Financial Size and Strength

Because we are only considering the highest rated life insurance companies, we figured that financial stability and strength should be at the top of our list of criteria. There are several ratings to choose from, including A.M. Best, Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s and the overall Comdex rating.

We’ll stick with A.M. Best Ratings because it is the oldest, founded in 1899, and most widely recognized credit rating agency dedicated to the insurance industry. In addition, A.M. Best ratings are more abundant, as Fitch, Moody’s and S&P provide ratings on fewer top life insurance providers.

A.M. Best ratings have 2 symbols that indicate their ratings analysis.

The first symbol is alphabetical, ranging from A++ at the top end to E at the lower end, and indicates the financial strength of the company. When calculating financial strength, A.M. Best, conducts a thorough examination of the company’s income and balance sheet strength, operating performance and business profile.

The second symbol is a roman numeral that designates the financial size of the company, ranging from I, less than 1 million, to XV, greater than 2 billion. A.M. Best arrives at this rating by examining data such as policyholder reserve funds, other investment or operating contingency funds, and miscellaneous reserves reported as liabilities on the balance sheet.

Because we’re more concerned for this review with strength verses size, we’ll focus on the first symbol. Most life insurance companies have a rating of A- (excellent) or better by A.M. Best, so we’ll be pointing to those that meet or exceed this benchmark.

Note: Companies with a rating of B or less are considered “vulnerable” by A.M. Best, and are generally never recommended.

Range of Policy Options

With hundreds of life insurance companies to choose from, this category is a bit tough to nail down. Because we tend to focus on permanent life, this narrows our field because some companies cater to term life insurance.

A term insurance policy is useful in many situations and we may even suggest adding a term rider to your whole life insurance policy to increase its cash accumulation efficiency and provide a larger initial death benefit for your family.

The next question is whether the company offers a good mix of both dividend paying whole life insurance coverage and other kinds of permanent life insurance products such as universal life.

We’re focusing on consumer friendly companies that offer the best mix of options – don’t forget our “best boxer” analogy.

And lastly, many of our clients have very busy schedules and they find it difficult to schedule and take a medical exam. Many of the companies we list offer automated accelerated underwriting in lieu of a life insurance medical exam. This is a huge benefit to our clients who have a hard time scheduling an exam or who want to avoid the medical exam altogether.

Policy Design Options

In life insurance, as in any other industry, there is competition. And the devil (or angel) is often in the details of policy design.

Although all life insurance companies are constrained by legal limits such as the MEC rules, some offer more flexibility for options such as paid up additions riders or options for chronic illness or long-term care.

This aspect of our criteria is admittedly a bit more subjective to our experience with various companies. Part of this criteria considers how innovative a select company is in its offerings.

And with hundreds of products offered by the top life insurance companies, it can be a challenge to stay up to speed on every aspect of every product and company for the benefit of our clients looking to purchase insurance, although we continue to strive to do so.

Finally, when deciding on the best life insurance company and policy, we must take into account the objective of the policy. For example, is the policy designed for:

• Income Replacement
• Long-term Care Insurance
• Single Premium
• Second to Die
• Retirement Planning
• Estate Planning

The focus of the policy will determine which top life insurance company we choose, as each carrier has different strengths and weaknesses.

Captive or Non-Captive

By captive or non-captive companies, we are identifying those life insurance companies who market products through their own captive agencies and insurance agents versus those who allow any appointed life insurance agent to market their products alongside other companies products.

Examples of captive agencies are New York Life, Guardian and Northwestern Mutual, all of whom have made our list but may have fared better otherwise.

Non-captive companies include Mass Mutual and Penn Mutual, as these top life insurance companies tended to fare better in our survey for this reason, among others.

Some may deem this aspect of our criteria to be odd, or even offensive to those in captive companies. However, this is a consumer oriented overview and in our experience, consumers are best served with a range of choices and options. So, the logic goes that in captive companies, where agents are “incentivized” to push their own products above all else, this can weigh against consumer friendliness even if the products offered are exceptional.

Before the critics converge, I’ll point out our understanding that captive agents can, within limits, offer products outside of their own companies. However, in our experience, this rarely includes alternative permanent life insurance plans and mostly involves exploring other companies for cheap term insurance options.

Customer Service

Certain companies tend to stand out with consumers and this is as complicated as this part of our criteria gets. Our research on this issue involved reviewing the J.D. Power Ratings Life Insurance Study for many of the companies that overlapped our list AND scouring other web based surveys and reports about those companies with the highest customer satisfaction.

Having carefully considered all of the above criteria, we’ve complied our list of the top 10 best life insurance companies as follows.

Top 10 Best Life Insurance Companies

The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company

Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company is an A+ rated (superior) mutual insurance company. This rating is among the best and demonstrates the insurers strong financial stability.

First, Penn Mutual’s dividend paying whole life insurance product is one of the front runners in the industry. The whole life insurance product has a robust history of dividend payments and more flexibility in design options, such as paid up additions, than many other companies. The policy builds early high cash value only rivaled by Penn Mutual’s IUL policy.

Penn Mutual offers guaranteed universal life insurance and variable universal life insurance products AND recently introduced a formidable indexed universal life insurance product with an accumulation rider.

And if you need term, a term life insurance policy from Penn Mutual offers a conversion option to one of its exceptional permanent life insurance policies.

Another area where Penn Mutual excels is with its ACE program, which is accelerated underwriting, allowing your to get covered without taking a medical exam.

So, Penn Mutual is covering the spectrum with an exceptional array of choices for consumers. Penn Mutual’s customer service record is solid from our personal experience and everything we could find.

MassMutual

When we holistically factored in all 5 of our carefully considered criteria, MassMutual stands out from the crowd for a few reasons.

First, Mass Mutual is among the top rated life insurance companies in the nation with an A++ A.M. Best rating. This superior financial rating by Mass Mutual gave them an edge over the next closest competitors on our list. Mass Mutual not only offers a stellar dividend paying whole life insurance policy that builds cash value, but also offers alternative coverage with its guaranteed universal life insurance, variable universal life insurance, AND a solid convertible term life insurance policy.

One weakness of Mass Mutual is what appears to be a lack of creativity in design, as the majority of their policy options are relatively straightforward. Still, MassMutual keeps it simple and delivers a wide array of choices with solid backing. They also deliver great customer service in our experience.

Finally, MassMutual is a mutual insurance company that allows non-captive agents to offer its products, along with products from competitors.

Western and Southern Financial

Western and Southern is a top 10 life insurance company for direct written premiums for life and annuity insurance in the USA. The company has an A+ rating with A.M. Best and a 96 Comdex ranking. Western and Southern offers the usual blend of products, including term life insurance, universal life insurance and whole life insurance.

One of the member companies of Western and Southern Financial is Lafayette Life. Lafayette Life is one of the premium dividend paying whole life insurance companies in the marketplace, and consistently ranks as one our of “go to” choices for whole life insurance.

Foresters Financial

Foresters Life Insurance and Annuity Company is a subsidiary of Foresters Financial, both of which are rated A (excellent) by A.M. Best. Foresters is arguably the least known life insurance company on our list and yet commanded our attention for a few reasons.

First, Foresters has a very strong whole life insurance product for wealth building AND also offers a “no medical exam” option which is a very consumer friendly approach. What you get is a top of the line limited pay life insurance policy, without the aggravation of a medical exam.

Second, Foresters has an exceptional indexed universal life insurance product that is reportedly very favorable for wealth building and using life insurance policy loans for working capital which is useful for business owners and real estate investors.

So, Foresters gets high marks for both a range of policy options AND exceptional policy design options. Foresters is non-captive and easy for agents to work with, which in our experience means that customers are given options. When you combine this with other notable company and policy options, they get high marks.

Finally, we’ve heard nothing negative about Foresters’ customer service, thus placing them high in our rankings.

Transamerica Life Insurance Company

Transamerica Life is a solid life insurer with a good set of policy options and designs. With an A+ A.M. Best rating and a structure that is essentially non-captive, this company offers a nice set of options for consumers. Although the company culture is somewhat unique, in utilizing a kind of multilevel approach to the agent offices, agents only need to be appointed to offer their products.

Transamerica offers some of the most competitive term life insurance rates. For example, a 10 year term life insurance policy for a 30 year old male in good health is $20,64 a month.

Transamerica caters to all kinds of strategies including wealth building through whole life insurance, universal life insurance and variable life insurance policies. They did suffer a bit on the J.D. Power customer satisfaction survey. However, this factor was offset by their product choices and options and the fact that they are a non-captive company that is easy to work with.

Guardian Life Insurance Company of America

Guardian Life is an A.M. Best rating (superior) and is arguably one of the strongest life insurance companies in the U.S. If it were not for the fact that they are a captive company, they may have ranked higher on our list. As with our other captive companies to follow, their agents can only offer their products. We believe that this can be prejudicial to consumers by limiting options.

However, with that concern noted, Guardian does offer an impressive range of policy options, from a solid wealth building whole life insurance product to various universal life insurance options including indexed universal life.

Guardian Life also offers some great whole life policy design options for low cost paid up additions, providing consistent dividend payments over the years, paying nearly $1.3 billion to policyholders in 2023.

Finally, Guardian is owned by its policyholders and has a very good customer service reputation, as supported by the J.D. Power survey, and thus earned a solid spot on our list.

Protective Life

Protective Life has an A+ Superior rating with A.M. Best. The company is known for being a low price leader in its term and custom choice UL policy. The company offers a 40 year term life insurance policy. And it also offers a unique universal life insurance policy in its Custom Choice UL, which is similar to a term life insurance policy, but with more flexibility.

Protective Lifetime Assurance UL is a universal life insurance policy that provides a low cost lifetime coverage. For example, the first 10 years for the Custom Choice UL for a 30 year old male in good health is $248.20 annually.

And Protective Life also has an indexed universal life insurance policy in its Protective Indexed Choice UL and a variable universal life insurance policy in its Protective Strategic Objectives VUL, demonstrating the companies broad product offering.

Protective Life’s PLUS program allows for accelerated underwriting, with those qualifying being able to avoid a medical exam. PLUS is available to underwrite Protective Classic Choice term, Protective Custom Choice UL, Protective Indexed Choice UL and Protective Lifetime Assurance UL.

New York Life Insurance Company

New York Life is arguably the largest life insurance company in the U.S. and the largest mutual insurance company. New York Life is a recipient of the top A.M. Best rating A++ (superior) and has a perfect Comdex ranking of 100 out of 100. Similar to some of our other choices, this is a captive company that was built on whole life insurance but has expanded into offering a range of other products.

New York Life is known for offering a solid whole life insurance product; however, we found that they are also striving to offer solid universal life policies complete with a number of life insurance riders such as “no lapse” and “living benefits”.  The presentation and options available for universal life insurance products edged New York Life slightly ahead of the next closest contender to follow.

New York Life announced a dividend payment of $2.2 billion for 2024, marking the 170th consecutive dividend payment in the company’s history.

Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company

Currently the top rated life insurance provider, Northwestern Mutual has an A++ (superior) A.M. Best rating and a perfect Comdex ranking of 100, demonstrating the Company’s top level financial stability. But a few factors bumped them down the list in our estimation when it comes to consumer friendliness.

First, Northwestern Mutual is also a captive company and tends to guard their products more closely than other companies. This means that not only can independent brokers not offer their products, but also that their agents are committed to marketing their own permanent life insurance products because they believe they are the best, period.

Second, Northwestern Mutual heavily emphasizes whole life insurance products and their universal life insurance offerings are not heavily promoted or emphasized in their marketing. Northwestern Mutual’s strict whole life emphasis has garnered some criticism over the years.

Still, Northwestern Mutual’s customer service and satisfaction rank very highly, and their product mix and design options are solid and thus they made the cut in our top 10 life insurance companies list.

AIG

At the risk of inspiring concern due the recently tarnished reputation of AIG, allow me to first point out AIG Life Insurance was never under scrutiny. A.M. Best recently reaffirmed AIG’s life insurance issuer, American General, with an A rating (excellent), having concluded that they maintain adequate leadership experience, liquidity and flexibility. As such, they’ve made our list for a few reasons.

As our other contenders, AIG is a top life insurance company that offers a solid array of consumer friendly products spanning term life insurance, whole life insurance, universal life insurance and variable life insurance. They offer a guaranteed whole life insurance product for people 50 -85 years old, who cannot be turned down.

As one of the best term life insurance companies, AIG offers some of the most competitive rates. For example, a 40 year old male in good health getting a $1,000,000  10 year term life insurance policy would pay $309.60 annually.

AIG has an accelerated underwriting program, Agile Underwriting+ (AG+) for its term life insurance policies and universal life insurance policies.

AIG is also a non-captive company although their customer service reputation was lower on the J.D. Power life insurance survey.

There you have it,…

…our top 10 list for consumer friendly life insurance companies who support our deepest values of promoting sound estate planning and wealth building strategies. You can run some sample term life insurance quotes to get an idea what your life insurance rate might be. Alternatively, if you are interested in seeing what one of these permanent life insurance policies can do, we would be happy to run different illustrations for you.

Best Life Insurance Companies Snapshot

Company	Products Offered	A.M. Best Rating	S&P Rating	Moody's Rating	Fitch Rating	Comdex Ranking
Penn Mutual	Convertible Term Life Whole Life Indexed Universal Life Variable Universal Life	A+	A+	AA3	N/A	91
MassMutual	Convertible Term Whole Life Guaranteed Universal Life Variable Universal Life	A++	AA+	AA2	AA+	98
Western and Southern	Convertible Term Life Whole Life Indexed Universal Life	A+	A+	AA3	AA	96
Foresters Financial	Convertible Term Life Whole Life Indexed Universal Life	A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Transamerica	Convertible Term Life Whole Life Indexed Universal Life Variable Universal Life	A+	AA-	N/A	A+	91
Guardian	Convertible Term Life Whole Life Indexed Universal Life	A++	AA+	AA2	AA+	98
Protective Life	Convertible Term Life Custom Choice Universal Life Indexed Universal Life Variable Universal Life	A+	A+	A1		92
New York Life	Convertible Term Life Whole Life Universal Life Variable Universal Life	A++	AA+	Aaa	AAA	100
Northwestern Mutual	Convertible Term Life Whole Life Universal Life Variable Universal Life	A++	AA+	Aaa	AAA	100
AIG American General	Convertible Term Life Whole Life Universal Life Indexed Universal Life Variable Universal Life	A	A+	A2	A+	82

Honorable Mentions

Although they didn’t make our Top 10, Pacific Life, Prudential Life Insurance Company and Mutual of Omaha offer exceptional IUL products, perhaps some of the best in the industry with numerous rider options to enhance your strategy depending upon your life circumstances.

So, if you’re committed to pursuing a solid IUL product, these 3 companies should be considered with the winner depending upon your life circumstances, such as your age and goals.

The Largest Life Insurance Companies

So how does our list stack up to the largest life insurance companies in terms of direct premiums written of individual life insurance? As you can see in the following chart, many of the top writers of life insurance premiums are also in our best life insurance companies list.

But an important point we would like to make is just because a company has a large percentage of the market does not mean that company is necessarily the “best” company.

We laid out our criteria above. And if you are looking for the best life insurance for wealth building and legacy creating, don’t just choose a company because it is the biggest or largest in the marketplace.

Rank	Company	% Market Share
1	Northwestern Mutual	9.5%
2	Mass Mutual	6.3%
3	New York Life	5.9%
4	Lincoln National	4.7%
5	Prudential	4.6%
6	State Farm	3.7%
7	John Hancock	3.3%
8	Pacific Life	3.2%
9	Transamerica	3.2%
10	Protective Life	2.8%

Source: NAIC data, sourced from S&P Global Market Intelligence, Insurance Information Institute.

The Best Life Insurance Policy

There are two main types of life insurance: term life and permanent life.

Term Life Insurance

Term life insurance lasts for a specific period of time, hence the word term. If you die during the term, the insurer will pay a lump sum tax-free death benefit to your designated beneficiary. The policy does not build cash value and if you don’t die during the term, the term life insurance policy ends.

When the term life insurance policy ends you have two primary options. You can choose to convert the policy or renew it.

If you decide to convert the term life policy, you need to do it by a set date or specific age (generally age 70, although it varies from company to company).

Term life insurance conversion allows you to convert all, or a portion, of your face amount to a permanent policy. Check with the carrier in advance because some life insurers limit your options.

If you choose to renew the term insurance policy, you will renew annually. Your cost of insurance will increase each year as you get older. Eventually, you will be priced out of the term policy as you get older and the premiums continue to rise.

Permanent Life Insurance

Permanent life insurance policies include Universal Life (UL) and Whole Life. In the past, whole life was the main permanent coverage offered, but Universal Life has become the favored choice among many.

Permanent life insurance is also called cash value life insurance. Most permanent life insurance builds tax deferred cash value, pays a tax free death benefit, and allows tax free policy loans.

Universal life insurance provides flexible premium payments, based on policy minimums, so you can make more, or less, premium payments. You can also change the face amount of the policy up or down, if needed.

Universal life insurance policies provide a guaranteed rate in the fixed account, which may be higher based on a declared rate by the company.

Universal life policies include Guaranteed Universal Life (GUL), Indexed Universal Life (IUL) and Variable Universal Life (VUL).

Guaranteed Universal Life Insurance

Guaranteed universal life insurance provide lifetime coverage with specific guarantees that guarantee the death benefit as long as minimum premium payments are made. Guaranteed universal life is a good choice when you want lifetime protection without cash value accumulation.

Indexed Universal Life Insurance

Indexed universal life insurance offers similar benefits to GULs but with potential to earn higher crediting rates based on the performance of an index that tracks the performance of the stock market, such as the S&P 500. But unlike VULs, IULs are not a direct investment in the market.

Variable Universal Life Insurance

Variable universal life insurance allow you to put your premiums into variable sub-accounts, which invest directly in the market, similar to mutual funds. There are no floor protections with VUL, so risk of loss is a possibility.

Whole Life Insurance

Whole life insurance is similar to GULs in that it has a guaranteed return and guaranteed death benefit. Whole life also provides guaranteed cash value accumulation. There is participating vs non-participating whole life. Participating whole life pays dividends, which can be used to purchase additional paid-up insurance, take out the cash, leave with the carrier to earn taxable interest, or pay premiums for a period of time. A properly structured whole life policy can be designed so that the focus is on cash value accumulation and growth, foregoing a large initial death benefit.

Term Life vs Whole Life

Term life insurance is heralded as the answer for just about anyone but the uber rich.

If you did a search on term life vs whole life insurance, the majority of the articles would have a positive bent towards term and a negative bent towards whole.

And you have to live under a rock to not have heard the phrase, buy term and invest the rest.

But as usual, the truth is not so simple.

Term life insurance is great for financial protection and providing peace of mind. But there are many benefits of permanent life insurance. We have numerous articles written on the benefits of the different permanent life insurance coverage available, including both whole life and universal life. And each policy can be crafted to meet your needs and objectives, including adding life insurance riders.

Life Insurance Riders

There are many different riders you can add to your life insurance policy to increase its efficiency and protection. The following are just a few of them.

Accelerated Death Benefit Rider: Typically, the Accelerated Death Benefit rider is included in your policy. If you are diagnosed with a qualifying terminal illness, you can access your death benefit for cash while you are still alive. Some companies also offer a chronic illness ADB rider.

Guaranteed Insurability Option: The GIO rider is a must if you are considering life insurance for children or young adults. The rider allows the purchase of additional insurance coverage with no evidence of insurability at specific ages or special occasions, up to age 46.

Waiver of Premium Rider: A particularly effective rider for business owners under the age of 60, the WoP rider kicks in if you are disabled, waiving all premiums due on your policy for the entire duration of the coverage, or until you are no longer disabled.

Paid-Up Additions Rider: The PUAR allows you to make premium payments in addition to your base premiums to increase your face amount and accumulate more cash value.

Term Insurance Rider: Due to the higher initial cost of permanent policies, you can supplement your coverage with a term rider to increase your death benefit coverage until your cash value has a chance to catch up.

Long-Term Care Rider: Helps pay for long term care costs by allowing you access to the death benefit after an elimination period (normally 90 days or more).

Chronic-Illness Rider: Similar to the long-term care rider, the chronic illness rider allows you to access your death benefit if you are diagnosed chronically ill. Typically, that requires that you are unable to perform 2 of 6 activities of daily living.

Conclusion

There are a lot of top 10 best life insurance companies list out there. Very few actually have taken the time to list the criteria for why. And even fewer, if any, are focused on long-term wealth building and legacy creation. If you are looking to gain financial independence, build wealth and create a legacy, we believe the companies in our list are the right ones to do just that.