Florida Blue rated well for having low deductibles and a good provider network. It was No. 8 on Insure.com’s 2023 Best Health Insurance Companies list – earning 3 stars out of 5.
Mel Duvall is an award-winning senior business writer and communications professional. Mel also served a three-year term on the Mount Royal University Journalism Committee.
John is the editorial director for CarInsurance.com, Insurance.com and Insure.com. Before joining QuinStreet, John was a deputy editor at The Wall Street Journal and had been an editor and reporter at a number of other media outlets where he covered insurance, personal finance, and technology.
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Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida rated well for having low deductibles and a good provider network from policyholders surveyed by Insure.com. The company also received 3.5 out of 5 stars from the National Committee for Quality Assurance. NCQA evaluates healthcare plans on, among other things, member satisfaction.
Overall, Florida Blue is No. 8 on Insure.com’s list of the Best Health Insurance Companies for 2023 with a star rating of 3 (or, more precisely, 2.98) out of 5 stars.
When compared to the other top health insurance providers in our survey, it had lower marks compared to other top insurers in our survey for renewals, although 87% of its customers who responded said they would sign up again with the insurer.
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.
Below is Insure.com’s review of the company. It’s based on third-party metrics and our in-depth survey of insurance customers. Find the full methodology here, including an explanation of our survey scores.
Florida Blue ranked tenth for affordability among the companies we looked at. However, customers give it high marks for having low deductibles. And we found that the company has rates that are comparable to other insurers.
Below is a look at how Florida Blue rates in Florida compare with those of Aetna for a similar plan. These are 2023 healthcare exchange rates for a single, 40-year-old male in excellent health with an annual income of $70,000.
Almost 75% of Florida Blue customers say they are satisfied with the insurer. A few other insurers ranked higher in this category, which Kaiser led. However, the company did better when looking at average J.D. Power’s health plan scores, which measure health plans for overall customer satisfaction. It had the fourth highest score among the companies we ranked.
BCBS of Florida has a strong track record of handling complaints before they escalate. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) compares major providers on how many complaints are filed with state regulators. If a provider has a rate equal to its customer base, it receives a 1.0 score. If it has twice as many complaints as its share of business, it gets a 2.0. Florida Blue had a score of 0.78, meaning it had a small number of complaints filed compared to its market share.
Florida Blue offers a range of individual and family plans, Medicare and plans through employers. Roughly 78% of customers surveyed by Insure.com said they were happy with the offerings. Kaiser came out on top in this category. Most of the big health insurers had scores that ranged from 70% to 85%.
More than 80% of customers said they would recommend Florida Blue, but that was one of the lower scores among the top insurers in our survey. Kaiser led this category, with 96% of its customers saying they would recommend it.
Florida Blue finished in the lower half in this category, with 65% of its customers giving it high marks here. But this was a tough category. Eight of the 10 companies we ranked saw between 70-80% of their customers give them high marks for trust. Kaiser was the top rated insurer in this category and the only one to score above 80%.
Most do, but not all. About 87% of customers said they planned to renew their plans with Florida Blue. Anthem came out on top in this category followed by Kaiser.
While it didn’t rank among the top companies for affordability, Florida Blue scored well with customers for having low deductibles. It placed second among the companies we ranked, behind Blue Shield of California.
Florida Blue has a big provider network in the Sunshine State and customers think it’s generally good, ranking it in the top half in Insure.com’s survey.
Florida Blue’s beginnings date back to 1945, when the Florida Hospital Service began operations in Jacksonville, Florida. The following year, the Florida Medical Services Corp. was also formed, which would later become Blue Shield of Florida.
In 1980, the two companies came together under the Blue Cross and Blue Shield organization to create what is now known as Florida Blue.
Today, it has a customer base of about 6 million members and a provider network that spans the Sunshine State. And through its philanthropic arm, Florida Blue Foundation, the company invests in a wide range of programs and organizations that tackle health inequities among at-risk communities.
It has been on the forefront of incorporating virtual healthcare into its offerings and in 2022 launched a service with Sanitas Medical Centers, a key provider in its network, to offer around-the-clock access to care via video, through an app or by text or email.
Earlier in 2022, Hurricane Ian presented a hectic challenge and Florida Blue responded on a number of fronts. With many urgent care clinics and doctors’ offices shut in the wake of the hurricane, Florida Blue began offering free virtual doctor visits.
Through the service, clinicians were able to help with a wide range of non-emergency conditions and could also prescribe some medications. Florida Blue also partnered with New Directions Behavioral Health to offer a toll-free emotional support helpline during the crisis.
Florida Blue website. Accessed November 2022.
Insure.com in the fall of 2022 surveyed more than 1,500 insurance consumers (775 people with health insurance). The survey was conducted by online market research company Slice MR.
Respondents were asked to name their insurer and then grade it in the following categories – customer satisfaction, ease of service 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 – such as its provider network. 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 and if they planned to renew their policies. 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 selected – based on the number of survey responses – the top companies for further evaluation. 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.
They then collected AM Best financial stability ratings and National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) ratings, which evaluate health plans on, among other things, member satisfaction.
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 health insurers, we used the following weights to calculate the overall score for each company:
Each insurer was awarded from 1 to 5 stars. No insurer in our star ranking received less than 1 star and the highest possible ranking is 5 stars.