New York Life life insurance review and ratings 2024

New York Life is No. 5 in Insure.com’s Best Life Insurance Companies ranking, receiving 4.49 out of 5 stars. The company’s customers give it high marks for its ease of service and policy offerings.

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Our take

New York Life took the No. 5 spot in Insure.com’s Best Life Insurance Companies ranking. 

The company earned 4.49 out of a possible 5 stars. In Insure.com’s survey of life insurance customers, New York Life rated highly for its ease of service and policy offerings. The insurer also received excellent scores from third-party rating agencies as well. Its National Association of Insurance Commissioners score was one of the best of the insurers we ranked. NAIC rates a company by the number of customer complaints it receives. Meanwhile, AM Best gave New York Life an A++, its highest rating for financial stability 

Of the customers we surveyed, 96% said they planned to renew their New York Life policy.

Best whole life insurance ranking: In a separate Insure.com ranking that looked just at companies selling whole life insurance, New York Life was ranked sixth. The insurer received 3.47 stars out of a possible 5 stars.

Below is Insure.com’s review of the company and its entire life insurance product. It’s based on third-party metrics and an in-depth survey of insurance customers. Find the full methodology here, including an explanation of our survey scores.

New York Life
New York Life Ratings
Overall Rating: 4.5
Ease of service: 4.2
NAIC: 0.31
Customer Satisfaction: 4.1
AM Best Rating: A++

Pros and Cons

Pros:
  • Rated highly for ease of service
  • AM Best score of A++
  • High renewal rate
Cons:
  • Some other insurers had higher renewal scores
  • A few other companies offer cheaper rates

How New York Life scores on customer satisfaction

New York Life received a score of 76% for customer satisfaction, a score that was on the upper end compared to many of the insurers ranked. Pacific Life led this category. In a separate study by J.D. Power, its score was a tick above the 790 average.

Insurance companyPercent of customers that are satisfiedJ.D. Power overall satisfaction score (out of 1,000)
New York Life76%794
Pacific Life86%799
Mutual of Omaha66%805
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How much does New York Life insurance cost? 

Term life insurance is usually the most simple and affordable life insurance product. Insure.com used premiums collected by data provider CompuLife to evaluate New York Life’s term life offerings. 

New York Life’s life insurance’s term life insurance rates are comparable to most other insurers evaluated in the Insure.com survey. The industry average premium is $358 for 35-year-old non-smokers purchasing $500,000 in coverage for a 20-year term. New York Life’s average annual premium is comparable to the industry average at $357. Of the companies we ranked, Pacific Life and Penn Mutual had the cheapest rates at $280.

Insurance companyAverage annual premium
New York Life$357
AAA$440
Northwestern Mutual$439

How New York Life scores on ease of service

Policyholders want an insurer that makes it easy to use a policy. New York Life received the third-best ranking in this category.

Insurance companyPercent of customers who are satisfied with ease of service
New York Life82%
State Farm72%
Mutual of Omaha75%

How New York Life scores on policy offerings

A wide range of policy offerings makes it easier for consumers to find the coverage they need.

The percentage of those satisfied with New York Life’s policy offerings is 82%. Only a few competitors scored higher. Allstate led this category.

Insurance companyPercent of customers who are satisfied with the company’s policy offerings
New York Life82%
State Farm83%
Allstate85%

How trustworthy is New York Life?

Trust is at the heart of the relationship between an insurer and its customers. While New York Life outranked many competitors with a score of 76%, it wasn’t at the top of the list. Penn Mutual was the most trusted life insurer.

Insurance companyPercent of customers who find the company trustworthy
New York Life76%
AAA74%
Penn Mutual84%

Do New York Life customers plan to renew?

Consumers who are loyal to a company offer testimony about the insurer’s performance.

About 96% of customers plan to stick with New York Life. A very good score, but some insurers had a higher percentage of customers saying they would renew.

Insurance companyPercent of customers who find the company best for renewing a policy
New York Life96%
State Farm100%
Northwestern Mutual100%

New York Life life product details

Other services offered

  • Individual disability insurance
  • Long-term care insurance
  • Annuities 
  • Investment vehicles 

States where New York Life offers coverage

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States where New York Life offers coverage
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
Washington D.C.
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DC DE FL GA HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY
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Company background

New York Life

New York Life is one of the biggest mutual life insurance companies in the U.S. The insurer also has some of the highest financial ratings when compared to its peers.

New York Life’s history stretches back to 1841, when its predecessor – the Nautilus Insurance Company – was founded. Today, New York Life is one of the oldest and largest mutual insurance companies in the United States.

Policyholders share in the ownership and have received dividends based on the company’s investment performance every year since 1854.

Resources & Methodology

Sources:

New York Life. “Over 12,000 agents. One who will be there for you.” Accessed January 2024.

New York Life. “Five things to know about the founding of New York Life.” Accessed January 2024.

New York Life. “Over 175 years of helping people act on their love.” Accessed January 2024. 

J.D. Power. “Individual Life Insurance Study.” Accessed January 2024.

Methodology

Insure.com in the fall of 2023 surveyed more than 1,750 people with auto, home, life and health insurance (1003 with life insurance). The survey was conducted by online market research company Slice MR. Respondents were asked to name their insurer and the editors then selected – based on the number of responses – the top companies for this year’s Best Life Insurance Companies ranking. Insure.com needed 20 or more of a company’s customers to respond to the survey for that insurer to be included in the ranking, although in some categories the editors did consider companies with 18 or 19 responses. 

Respondents were first asked to grade their insurer in the following categories – customer satisfaction, claims satisfaction and policy offerings. The percentage of respondents who said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their insurer is presented in the results.

In addition, the editors also created star rankings for each company. Respondents were asked to pick their insurer’s top three attributes out of the more than the dozen presented – again including categories such as customer satisfaction and policy offerings. The number of responses for each of those attributes was totaled and then divided by the number of each company’s customers who responded to that survey question to create the star ranking. 

Respondents were then asked if they would recommend their insurer to someone else. The percentage who said yes is presented in the results.

They also were given the statement “I trust my insurance company” and asked if they strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement. The percentage of those who said they agreed or strongly agreed is presented in the results.

The editors compiled the survey results and then collected National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ complaint data, which ranks a company by the number of customer complaints it receives. The editors identified the NAIC company code or codes that were the primary underwriting companies for each carrier and line of business using total annual premiums. The associated NAIC complaint index score was used in our calculations. If more than one underwriting company was identified for a line, we used a weighted average of the NAIC complaint index scores.

The team also gathered AM Best data, which measures financial strength.

They also collected insurance rate data from Quadrant Information Services (for auto and home insurance), Compulife (for life insurance) and the public health marketplace (for health insurance).

With the help of Prof. David Marlett, Ph.D., managing director of the Brantley Risk and Insurance Center at Appalachian State University, the editors created a rating system to determine which insurance companies were best in each sector. For life insurers, we used the following weights to calculate the overall score for each company:

  • AM Best: 25% of total score
  • NAIC: 15% of total score
  • Survey: 60% of total score (10% customer satisfaction, 10% recommended, 10% renewal rate, 10% ease of service, 10% trustworthiness and 10% policy offerings)

To find the industry average annual premium, insure.com weighed the rates from 9 companies: AAA, Farmers, Guardian Life, John Hancock, Lincoln Financial, MassMutual, New York Life, Northwestern Mutual and Transamerica. Rates are based on premiums for 35-year-old males and females who are non-smokers and in good health. Rates are for a 20-year-term policy that provides $500,000 in coverage. 

No insurer in our ranking received less than half a star and the highest possible ranking is 5 stars.

On company review pages, the editors compared the profiled insurers in various categories against the leaders in that category or against other top insurers that match up well against the profiled company in terms of size and/or coverage area.

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Nupur Gambhir
Managing Editor

 
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Nupur Gambhir is a content editor and licensed life, health, and disability insurance expert. She has extensive experience bringing brands to life and has built award-nominated campaigns for travel and tech. Her insurance expertise has been featured in Bloomberg News, Forbes Advisor, CNET, Fortune, Slate, Real Simple, Lifehacker, The Financial Gym, and the end-of-life planning service.

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