100% of AIG customers plan to renew. The insurer, which is rebranding as Corebridge, ranks eighth in Insure.com’s Best Life Insurance Companies ranking.
Chris Kissell is a Denver-based writer and editor with work featured on U.S. News & World Report, MSN Money, Fox Business, Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Money Talks News and more.
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.
Why you should trust Insure.com
Quality Verified
AIG excels in policyholder loyalty. Of those customers Insure.com surveyed, 100% said they would renew a policy with AIG.
High customer loyalty was one of the key reasons AIG ranked among the top life insurers – the business came in eighth place in Insure.com’s Best Life Insurance Companies ranking.
The company did fairly well in other categories, including policy offerings. The company received 2.3 out of a possible 5 stars.
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.
Editor’s note: Earlier this year, after Insure.com’s Best Insurance Companies project was initiated, AIG rebranded its Life & Retirement business as Corebridge Financial. In our insurance consumer survey we listed the company as AIG and are doing so here.
AM Best's Financial Strength Rating is an independent opinion of an insurer's financial strength and ability to meet its ongoing insurance policy and contract obligations.
A happy customer is a loyal customer, and about 77% of AIG customers say they are satisfied with the insurer. That puts AIG in the middle of survey rankings. State Farm led the category.
J.D. Power rates AIG just below the industry average score of 774 with a rating of 744/1,000 in its 2022 U.S. Individual Life Insurance Study.
Policyholders want a smooth experience when they need to access, change, or get help with an insurance policy. AIG’s ease of service ranking is 77%, a score that puts it near the middle in this category. State Farm led the pack here.
For some consumers, a wide range of policy offerings is a key part of a good insurance policy.
About 77% of customers are satisfied with AIG’s policy offerings. A few insurers scored better, but some scored lower. State Farm received the highest scores in this category.
Life insurance – like so many things in life – all comes down to trust.
Almost 70% of its customers rated AIG high in this category. The average score in this category among all the surveyed life insurers is 75%. State Farm scored well. But among ranked companies the next highest score in this category was 79%
Customers who are loyal to a company tend to stick with it year after year. This is where AIG shines: A full 100% of survey respondents say they plan to renew their coverage with AIG. That ties AIG with several other companies at the top of this list.
In addition to life insurance, AIG provides other types of individual insurance, including:
AIG is a global insurance company with operations in around 70 countries and jurisdictions. AIG’s roots began in 1919 when Cornelius Vander Starr established a general insurance company in Shanghai, China. The first U.S. office of American International Underwriters opened in New York in 1926, and the company’s headquarters moved to New York in 1939. The company continued to grow internationally for the next several decades.
In 1999, AIG acquired SunAmerica, a retirement and financial services company, and in 2001, AIG acquired American General Corporation, a life insurance company.
AIG. “What is quality of life…insurance.” Accessed December 2022.
Corebridge Financial. “Action is everything.” Accessed December 2022.
Corebridge Financial. “Build financial confidence today and tomorrow.” Accessed December 2022.
AIG. “Insurance for Individuals & Families.” Accessed December 2022.
AIG. “About Us.” Accessed December 2022.
AIG. “Discover the History of AIG.” Accessed December 2022.
J.D. Power. “Individual Life Insurance Study.” Accessed December 2022.
Insure.com in the fall of 2022 surveyed more than 1,500 people with auto, home, life and health insurance (540 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.
Survey score calculation: Respondents were then asked to rank their insurer’s top three attributes out of more than a dozen presented – including customer satisfaction and policy offerings. For a number one choice, five points were given; for a second choice, three points; and for a third choice, a single point. The total points for each choice – first, second and third – were then divided by the number of each company’s customers who responded to that survey question to create a percentage. Those percentages are presented in the results as scores.
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, and 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:
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 star ranking received less than 1 star and the highest possible ranking is 5 stars.