Humana health insurance review and ratings 2023

Humana, gets high marks for customer satisfaction & being an all-around solid health insurance provider, is No. 5 on Insure.com’s 2023 Best Health Insurance Companies list earning 3.6 stars out of 5.

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Our take

Customers gave Humana generally high marks for being a good all-around health insurance provider, and the company ranked fifth overall in Insure.com’s Best Health Insurance Companies for 2023.

The for-profit company, which offers coverage across the country, received high marks for having a strong provider network and for its policy offerings. More than 91% of customers surveyed said they would recommend the company to others.

The company also received a strong 3.5 out of 5 stars from the National Committee for Quality Assurance. NCQA evaluates healthcare plans on, among other things, member satisfaction.

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.

Humana
Humana Ratings
Overall Rating: 3.6
Price/Affordability: 4.2
NCQA: 3.47
Customer Satisfaction: 4.4
AM Best Rating: A-

Pros and Cons

Pros:
  • Rated highly for customer satisfaction
  • More than 90% of customers would recommend it
  • It offers health insurance across the nation
Cons:
  • Other insurers had higher renewal scores
  • Not rated as highly as some competitors for affordability

How much does Humana cost?

Humana customers rated it in the middle of the pack when it came to affordability. This didn’t seem to come at the cost of customer satisfaction, as it ranked in the top half of our survey in that category. And it received high marks for having low deductibles.

Insurance company Rank for price/affordability among Insure.com’s top 10
Humana 5
Aetna 1
Cigna, UnitedHealthcare 2 (tie)

How Humana scores for customer satisfaction

Our survey found that 88% of Humana’s customers think it does a very good job at achieving customer satisfaction, placing it in the top half of companies in our survey. It wasn’t too far behind the top company, Kaiser Permanente, which achieved high customer satisfaction marks from 93% of its customers. Humana also ranked higher than other insurers when looking at average J.D. Power 2022 U.S. Commercial Member Health Plan Study scores, which measure health plans for overall customer satisfaction.

Insurance company Percent of customers who are satisfied with the company overall J.D. Power overall satisfaction score (out of 1,000)
Humana 88% 777
Kaiser Permanente 93% 766
UnitedHealthcare 86% 711

How Humana scores for complaints filed against the company

The company does a pretty good job 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 that is 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. Humana had a score of 1.02, meaning the number of complaints filed was pretty much on par with its market share.

Insurance company NAIC Complaint Index
Humana 1.02

How Humana scores for policy offerings

Another strength for Humana is its policy offerings, with 83% of customers saying they felt it had a good selection available. It had the fourth-highest score in this category. Kaiser Permanente and Blue Shield of California came out on top here.

Insurance company Percent of customers who score their insurance company highly for policy offerings
Humana 83%
Blue California and Kaiser Permanente 91%
UnitedHealthcare 84%

Would customers recommend Humana to others?

Yes, they would. Humana had one of the highest scores in this category, with 91% of customers saying they would recommend the company to others. Only Kaiser Permanente had a higher score.

Insurance company Percent of customers who would recommend their health insurance company to others
Humana 91%
Kaiser Permanente 96%
UnitedHealthcare 90%

How trustworthy is Humana?

Most customers do believe they can trust Humana. It received a 72% approval rating in this category, which put it in the middle of the pack. Kaiser Permanente led the ratings at 87%.

Insurance company Percent of customers who say they trust their health insurance company
Humana 72%
Kaiser Permanente 87%
Cigna 71%

Do current Humana customers plan to renew?

Most do, but not all. When customers were asked if they planned to renew with Humana, 87% said they would. While high, that was in the bottom half of our survey.

Insurance company Percent of customers who plan to renew with their health insurance company
Humana 87%
Anthem 95%
Kaiser Permanente 93%

How Humana scores for digital experience

Customers didn’t find the company’s website or online experience to be particularly strong. But then, few insurers did especially well in this category. The company’s MyHumana self-serve website offers many tools to check claims status, find coverage details and search for resources on its provider network. The MyHumana app has a 3 out of 5-star rating at the Apple store.

Insurance company Survey score for digital experience
Humana 31%
Cigna 37%
Aetna 37%

How Humana scores for low deductibles

Customers gave Humana high marks for having low deductibles. The company was the third highest-rated company in this category among the companies we ranked. Blue Shield of California had the highest score in this category.

Insurance company Survey score for low deductibles
Blue California 100%
Florida Blue 83%
Humana 77%

How Humana scores for its provider network

A healthcare provider network is a group of doctors, specialists and hospitals that provide services to insured members at a lower cost than providers outside the network. A strong provider network can be a key consideration when shopping for a health plan. Humana’s provider network was considered to be in the top half of the companies in the survey.

Insurance company Survey score for provider network
Humana 64%
Aetna 60%
UnitedHealthcare 54%

Humana health insurance coverage options

  • Insurance for families and individuals
  • Health insurance via employers
  • Medicare and Medicaid plans
  • Military plans
  • Pharmacy coverage

Other Humana services

  • Dental 
  • Vision
  • Group life insurance

States where Humana offers coverage

Graph
Table
States where Humana 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
Available
Not available

Company background

Humana

Humana has approximately 17 million members in its various medical benefit plans as well as about 5 million members in its specialty products. It has participated in Medicare for the last 30 years and offers a Medicare program in all 50 states.

Humana’s early beginnings were in the nursing home business.

In 1959, David Jones Sr. met Wendell Cherry during a job interview, and together they started a nursing home company. That company, known in 1968 as Extendicare, became the largest nursing home operation in the U.S.

In 1972, they decided to sell the nursing homes and focus instead on hospital ownership. In 1974, the partners changed the name of the business to Humana.

Humana moved into the health insurance business in 1984 when one of its hospitals in Arizona lost a contract with the main health insurer serving the state. They later spun off the hospital operations into a separate company and eventually sold the business.

In addition to offering a range of plans to individuals and families, Humana is one of the largest providers of Medicare, providing coverage in all 50 states.

Humana is recognized as being particularly good at catering to seniors and offers a number of programs to assist seniors in staying fit and healthy. Its Silver Sneakers fitness program offers online classes, organized group activities and access to fitness centers across the country.

Resources & Methodology

Sources:

Humana. “Humana homepage.” Accessed December 2022.

Methodology

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: 

  • 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.

author image
Mel Duvall
Contributing Researcher

 
  

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.

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