Prudential life insurance review and ratings 2024

Prudential ranks among Insure.com’s Best Life Insurance Companies, getting 3.84 out of 5 stars. Customers rated it highly for its customer service.

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Our take

Prudential ranked among Insure.com’s Best Life Insurance Companies, earning 3.84 stars out of 5. 

Prudential earns strong loyalty from customers surveyed by Insure.com, with most reporting they would renew their policy with the insurer. A majority of customers also reported that they were happy with the company’s customer service and ease of service.

Below is Insure.com’s review of the company. 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.

Prudential
Prudential Ratings
Overall Rating: 3.8
Ease of service: 4.0
NAIC: 4.71
Customer Satisfaction: 4.0
AM Best Rating: A+

Pros and Cons

Pros:
  • Premiums are slightly lower than the industry average
  • High renewal rate
  • Scored well for customer satisfaction
Cons:
  • Didn’t rank as high as competitors for its policy offerings

How Prudential scores for customer satisfaction

More than 77% of Prudential’s customers we surveyed gave the company high marks for customer service. In a separate J.D. Power study looking at customer satisfaction, the company had a score of 779, just below the life insurance industry average of 790.

Insurance companyPercent of customers that are satisfiedJ.D. Power overall satisfaction score (out of 1,000)
Prudential77%779
State Farm78%843
New York Life76%794
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How Prudential scores on ease of service

Customers want a hassle-free insurance experience. When compared to other insurers surveyed, 75% of Prudential’s customers gave it high marks. Pacific Life led this category.

Insurance companyPercent of customers that are satisfied with ease of service
Prudential75%
Pacific Life86%
Allstate78%

How Prudential scores on policy offerings

A wide range of policy offerings makes it easier for customers to get the coverage they need. Allstate led in this category, receiving a score of 85%. 

Insurance companyPercent of respondents satisfied with the company’s policy offerings
Prudential74%
Allstate85%
New York Life82%

How trustworthy is Prudential?

Trust is a vital part of the relationship between an insurer and its policyholders. Sixty-eight percent of the company’s customers we surveyed said it was trustworthy. Penn Mutual led this category.

Insurance companyPercent of survey respondents who find the company trustworthy
Prudential68%
Penn Mutual84%
Northwestern Mutual71%

Do Prudential customers plan to renew?

Happy customers are loyal customers. Almost all of Prudential’s customers plan to stick with the company. Most companies scored highly in this category. And 100% of the customers from four insurers, including Gerber Life and Lincoln Financial, said they would renew with their current company. 

Insurance companyPercent of survey respondents who find the company best for renewing a policy
Prudential97%
Allstate98%
Mutual of Omaha93%

Prudential life product details

Other services offered

  • Health insurance
  • Investment services
  • Annuities

States where Prudential offers coverage

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Table
States where Prudential offers coverage
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
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

Prudential

Prudential is a Fortune 500 company that provides insurance, retirement and investment products. It is the second-largest life insurance company in the U.S.

Founded in Newark, New Jersey, in 1875, Prudential has become one of the world’s largest financial services companies, with $1.35 trillion of assets under management.

Prudential focuses on insurance, investment and retirement income.

Resources & Methodology

Sources:

Prudential. “Life Insurance Policies.” Accessed January 2024.

Prudential. “Financial Strength Ratings.” Accessed January 2024.

Prudential. “Annuity Strategies for Your Retirement Challenges.” Accessed January 2024.

Prudential. “Prudential History.” Accessed January 2024.

Prudential. “Prudential Financial Fact Sheet.” Accessed January 2024.

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

S&P Global. “The world’s largest life insurers, 2023.” 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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