Insurance expert Mel Duvall is an award-winning business journalist with a background in covering insurance, banking and personal finance. His work has appeared in leading publications such as The Financial Post, American Banker and Baseline Magazine.
Elizabeth Rivelli is an insurance expert and freelance writer specializing in insurance and personal finance. Her work has been featured in major outlets like Investopedia, CNET and Bankrate, where she helps readers make confident decisions about car insurance, coverage options and financial planning.
John McCormick is an insurance expert and the editorial director for QuinStreet's insurance sites -- CarInsurance.com, Insurance.com and Insure.com. Before joining QuinStreet, he was a deputy editor at The Wall Street Journal and was an editor and reporter at several media outlets where he covered insurance, personal finance and technology.
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Customers gave Humana generally high marks for being a good all-around health insurance provider, and the company ranked fifth overall (tied with Health Care Services Corp. and Elevance) in Insure.com’s Best Health Insurance Companies for 2025.
The for-profit company, which offers coverage across the country, received high marks for customer satisfaction, affordability and policy offerings. Of the customers we surveyed, almost 88% said they would recommend the company to others.
Of the companies we ranked, Humana received the best complaint index score from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a 0.15. The NAIC ranks insurers by the number of customer complaints they receive. A market average is 1.0, and anything less indicates the carrier receives fewer complaints than typical for a company its size.
The company, however, received a score of 2.75 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.
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.
Humana customers rated it highly for its price and affordability. Only Molina, Elevance and Kaiser Permanente had higher star rankings in this category. Customers also give it high marks for having low deductibles.
Humana received one of the highest customer satisfaction scores, 4.15 stars out of 5, beating UnitedHealthcare, Cigna and others in this category
Humana, however, was not rated in any region in J.D. Power’s 2024 U.S. Commercial Member Health Plan Study, so we are not able to show how it compares with other insurers. The J.D. Power study measures health plans for overall customer satisfaction.
Another strength for Humana is its policy offerings, with 86% of its customers saying it offered a good selection. It had the third-highest score in this category. Elevance and Molina were the only companies that did better than Humana in this category.
Yes, they would. Of the customers we surveyed, 88% of Humana’s customers said they would recommend the company to others. The leader in this category was Highmark, which had a 100% recommendation rate.
Most customers believe they can trust Humana. Of the customers we surveyed, 85% of customers gave it high marks in this category. This was the second-best score in this category. UnitedHealthcare led the ratings at 89%.
When customers were asked if they planned to renew with Humana, 82% said they would. While high, a few companies did better. Molina led this category.
The company’s MyHumana self-serve website offers many tools. In our survey, 84% of respondents said they were happy with the company’s digital experience. The winner in this category was Molina.
Humana scored very well for low deductibles. Molina was the only company that received a higher score than Humana in this category.
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.
In our survey, 85% of Humana’s customers gave it high marks for its provider network. The only two companies that scored higher in this category were Elevance and Aetna.
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 more than 30 years and offers Medicare Advantage plans in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
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 state’s main health insurer. 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 Advantage plans, 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.
Sources:
Humana. “Humana homepage.” Accessed March 2025.
Insure.com in the fall of 2024 surveyed more than 1,750 insurance consumers (almost 1,500 of which had health insurance). The survey was conducted by online market research company Slice MR.
Respondents were asked to name their health insurer and then grade it in a number of categories, including:
The percentage of respondents who said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their insurer is presented in the results.
We then asked respondents to provide a yes or no response to indicate their agreement with the following statements:
The percentage of respondents who said yes 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.
We then collected data from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), which evaluates and rates health plans, and National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ complaint data, which ranks a company by the number of customer complaints it receives. The Insure.com team identified the NAIC codes of each underwriting company for each carrier and calculated a weighted average complaint index, weighted by the annual written premium. The associated NAIC complaint index score was used in the calculations.
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 took the following and gave each a weight.
Each insurer was awarded between half a star and 5 stars. No company in the ranking received less than half a star in any category, and 5 stars was the most any insurer could receive.