Highmark health insurance review and ratings 2024

Highmark, No. 2 on Insure.com’s Best Health Insurance Companies list, scored well in our health insurance consumer survey. Highmark’s customers rated it high for customer satisfaction and trustworthiness. It earned 4.1 stars out of 5.

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Our Take

Highmark is an excellent health insurance provider to consider if you want to work with a company that provides great customer satisfaction. It’s No. 2 on Insure.com’s Best Health Insurance Companies list, earning 4.1 (or, more precisely, 4.13) stars out of 5.

In our study of the top health insurance companies, Highmark earned an overall customer satisfaction score of 4.15 out of 5 stars, with 90% of customers in our survey giving it high marks. 

In addition, 96% of survey respondents said they would recommend Highmark to other health insurance shoppers, and 98% said they plan to renew their policy. The company also received a strong National Committee for Quality Assurance rating– 3.6 out of 5 stars. NCQA evaluates healthcare plans on, among other things, member satisfaction. 

Highmark scored well overall in terms of cost, but we found that other companies rated higher for affordable rates. And Highmark only sells health insurance in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and West Virginia, so it’s not an option for most health insurance shoppers.

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.

Highmark
Highmark Ratings
Overall Rating: 4.1
Price/Affordability: 4.0
NCQA: 3.59
Customer Satisfaction: 4.2
AM Best Rating: A

Pros and Cons

Pros:
  • Highly rated for customer satisfaction
  • Highly rated for trustworthiness
  • Excellent renewal rate
Cons:
  • Limited coverage area
  • Poor digital experience score

How much does Highmark insurance cost?

Highmark’s health insurance plans are decent in terms of cost. In our study, Highmark was ranked sixth out of 15 providers for price/affordability. Kaiser Permanente led this category with 4.3 stars out of 5.

Insurance companyPrice/affordability stars 
Highmark4.00
Horizon4.03
Blue Shield of California3.54

The cost of health insurance from Highmark depends on the plan you purchase, as well as personal factors like your age and whether you smoke. Here are the average 2024 healthcare exchange rates for several plans in Pennsylvania for a 40-year-old male in excellent health with an annual salary of $70,000:

Insurance companyRate/MonthPlan
Highmark $365.25my Priority Blue Flex PPO Bronze 8900
Highmark $568.85my Priority Blue Flex PPO Silver 7000
Highmark $506.50my Priority Blue Flex PPO Gold 1500

How Highmark scores for customer satisfaction

Highmark stands out for its superior customer satisfaction. In our study, Highmark scored 4.15 out of 5 points for customer satisfaction, which is the second-highest score we assigned. Nine in 10 customers we surveyed were satisfied with the company. It also rated well against other insurers in an average of J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Commercial Member Health Plan Study scores for Delaware-West Virginia-Washington, D.C. J.D. Power measures health plans for overall customer satisfaction. (The Highmark J.D. Power score below is for Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Delaware.)

Insurance companyCustomer satisfaction starsJ.D. Power overall satisfaction score (out of 1,000) 
Highmark 4.15725
Aetna3.98716
Cigna3.95712

How Highmark scores for policy offerings

Highmark has decent policy offerings. Seven out of 10 respondents said they were satisfied with the policies offered by the company. BCBS of Michigan led this category 

Insurance companyPercent of customers who score their health insurance company highly for policy offerings
Highmark71%
BCBS of Michigan88%
BCBS of Florida63%

Would customers recommend Highmark to others?

Yes, 96% of survey respondents said they would recommend Highmark to other people looking for health insurance. With great customer satisfaction and a high renewal rate, it makes sense why so many current customers would suggest Highmark to health insurance shoppers. BCBS of Michigan topped this category, with all BCBS of Michigan customers who responded to our survey saying they would tell others about the company.

Insurance companyPercent of customers who would recommend their health insurance company to others
Highmark96%
BCBS of Michigan100%
BCBS of Florida73%

How trustworthy is Highmark?

Highmark had the second-highest trustworthy score of the companies we ranked, with 83% of its customers giving it high marks. Only Kaiser Permanente did better.

Insurance companyPercent of customers who say they trust their health insurance company
Highmark83%
BCBS of Michigan80%
BCBS of Florida60%

Do current Highmark customers plan to renew?

One of the most impressive things about Highmark is that 98% of customers said they plan to renew their policy, according to our survey results. In this category, Highmark tied with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for the highest renewal rating.

Insurance companyPercent of customers who plan to renew with their health insurance company
Highmark98%
BCBS of Michigan98%
BCBS of Florida90%

How Highmark scores for digital experience

Highmark did not score well in terms of digital experience. Only 15% of customers surveyed said they were pleased with the company’s digital experience, which includes its website and mobile app. But it should be noted that none of the companies in our survey did especially well here.

Insurance company Percent of customers who highly rank the company’s digital experience
Highmark 15%
BCBS of Michigan 17%
BCBS of Florida 13%

How Highmark scores for deductibles

Seventeen percent of respondents said they were satisfied with Highmark’s deductibles. A deductible is the amount of money you have to pay out-of-pocket for health care services before your health insurance plan begins to pay. But this was another category in which none of the ranked companies did well. Aetna, Cigna and HCSC were in a three-way tie at the top of this category, with 31% of each company’s customers giving it a good grade here.

Insurance company Percent of customers who highly rank the company for low deductibles
Highmark 17%
BCBS of Florida 30%
BCBS of Michigan 27%

How Highmark scores for its provider network

Highmark has the second-best provider network score in our study. Almost 30% of respondents said they were satisfied with Highmark’s provider network, which is the group of doctors, specialists, and hospitals that provide discounted services to insured members. Molina Healthcare had the highest score of 31%, but none of the companies we ranked did particularly well here.

Insurance company Percent of customers who highly rank the company’s provider network
Highmark 27%
BCBS of Michigan 24%
BCBS of Florida 23%

Highmark health insurance coverage options

  • Insurance for individuals and families
  • Medicare
  • Medicaid/CHIP
  • Group health insurance

Other Highmark services

  • Dental insurance
  • Vision insurance
  • Travel insurance
  • Highmark Caring Place

States where Highmark offers coverage

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Table
States where Highmark offers coverage
Delaware
New York
Pennsylvania
West Virginia
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

Highmark

Highmark was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh. The company was formed when Blue Cross of Western Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania Blue Shield merged and became a single health insurance company under the name Highmark.

Over the past several decades, multiple Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates have joined Highmark, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Delaware and Mountain State Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Today, Highmark sells health insurance plans to roughly 7 million customers across four states: Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, and West Virginia.

Resources and Methodology

Sources:

Healthcare.gov. “How insurance companies set health premiums.” Accessed February 2024.

J.D. Power. “Commercial Health Plan Member Satisfaction Declines in Key Areas.” J.D. Power Finds.” Accessed February 2024.

NAIC. “Highmark Inc National Complaint Index Report.” Accessed February 2024.

Highmark. “Our Story.” Accessed February 2024.

Methodology

Insure.com in the fall of 2023 surveyed more than 1,750 insurance consumers (1,433 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 a number of categories, including 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.

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 they were presented – including categories such as customer satisfaction and price/affordability. 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 also 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 30 or more of a health insurer’s customers to respond to the survey for a company to be included in the ranking.

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: 

  • Survey – 60% of total score (10% for customer satisfaction, 10% trustworthiness, 10% for recommending the carrier to another, 10% if a respondent would renew with their current insurer, and 20% if they consider their insurer the best for affordability)
  • AM Best – 25% of total score
  • NCQA – 15% of total score

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.

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.

author image
Elizabeth Rivelli
Contributing Researcher

 
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Elizabeth Rivelli is a freelance writer who covers various insurance topics. Her areas of expertise are life insurance, car insurance, property insurance and health insurance. Elizabeth’s byline has appeared in dozens of online publications, including Investopedia, CNET and Bankrate. She has also written for several insurance carriers.

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