Molina gets high marks for trustworthiness and was ranked No. 9 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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Molina Healthcare offers plans under Medicaid and Medicare and through the state health insurance marketplace.
It may not be available in your state, yet those customers who get their insurance through Molina give it high marks for trustworthiness and the company has a respectable 3 out of 5 stars from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). NCQA evaluates healthcare plans on, among other things, member satisfaction.
Overall, Molina ranked No. 9 in Insure.com’s list of the Best Health Insurance Companies for 2023 with a star rating of 3 (or, more precisely, 2.96) out of 5 stars.
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.
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.
Although the company was founded to provide low-income people with affordable healthcare, it didn’t score especially well here. However, we found that Molina does offer cheaper coverage in some markets.
Below is a look at how Molina rates in Michigan compare with those of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan 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.
Molina received one of the lower scores among the top insurers in our survey for customer satisfaction. Still, 80% approval in this category is fairly high. Most members say they will renew their policies, which indicates they expect some drawbacks with the price. Kaiser Permanente is the top-ranked company in this category, followed by Blue Shield of California.
Large competitors offer more choices. Molina’s offerings are limited to Medicaid, Medicare, or other state-sponsored plans. Generally, customers were OK with that. However, Blue Shield of California and Kaiser Permanente led this category.
Yes, Molina ranked fairly well in this category with 85% of customers saying they would recommend the company to others. There may be some recognition that while most customers are willing to make some sacrifices, others may not be. Molina ranked behind Kaiser, which led this category.
Molina has earned customers’ trust. It was in the top companies in our survey, with 75% of respondents saying they trust the company. 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 Permanente led the way at 87%.
Most say yes. Customers seem to recognize they get good value for their money, with 90% saying they would renew. Anthem was the top ranked company here.
The company was founded in 1980 by C. David Molina, an emergency room doctor in Long Beach, California. Molina grew alarmed by a steady stream of patients to his emergency room for common illnesses that could have been treated in primary care centers. The patients were showing up in emergency rooms because they were being turned away from doctors who wouldn’t accept the state’s Medi-Cal health insurance.
He established a primary care clinic in Long Beach to treat low-income patients. There was a clear void to fill, and by the end of the decade, Molina became the state’s largest primary care management provider for Medi-Cal patients. Molina continued to grow and expand to other states, sticking to its roots of offering Medicare, Medicaid and other government-sponsored plans.
Molina passed away in 1996, but the company and the concept continue to live on. Today, Molina operates in almost 20 states and has more than 5 million members.
Sources:
Molina corporate information. Accessed November 2022.
C. David Molina Chair in Medicine profile, John Hopkins University. 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.