State Farm ranks first in Insure.com’s Best Life Insurance Companies rankings, with customers giving it high marks in customer service, policy renewal and other areas.
Barry Eitel is a content writer and journalist focused on insurance, small business and finance. He has researched and written about personal finance since 2012, with a special focus on entrepreneurship, freelancing and other small business operations. His writing on insurance and small business has been featured in 7x7, Brit + Co, Intuit Quickbooks, Bankrate, Policygenius and Lendio.
Nupur Gambhir is a content editor and licensed life, health, and disability insurance expert. She has extensive experience bringing brands to life and has built award-nominated campaigns for travel and tech. Her insurance expertise has been featured in Bloomberg News, Forbes Advisor, CNET, Fortune, Slate, Real Simple, Lifehacker, The Financial Gym, and the end-of-life planning service.
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State Farm ranks first in Insure.com’s Best Life Insurance Companies list with a 4.8 out of a 5 star rating, earning high marks in multiple categories. Consider a State Farm policy if customer satisfaction is your top priority.
In fact, State Farm scored highest for customer service in Insure.com’s survey of insurance consumers, which also found that nearly all State Farm life customers plan to keep their coverage with the company.
State Farm received an A++ rating from AM Best for its credit rating, a measurement of financial strength, and a J.D. Power score of 839 (out of 1,000) for customer service.
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.
State Farm earned the highest score among the companies we ranked in this category. It also had the highest J.D. Power overall satisfaction score of any life insurance company. State Farm came in ahead of competitors like Mutual of Omaha and Prudential.
State Farm took the top ranking for ease of service – a metric that rates how easy it is for customers to access policy documents and make changes. State Farm scored at least five percentage points ahead of almost every major competitor in this category. Mutual of Omaha was in a three-way tie for second with New York Life and Northwestern.
State Farm is also the most highly ranked company for policy offerings. Mutual of Omaha came in second among ranked companies in this category, but State Farm outscored many competitors by 10 percentage points or more in this category.
The overwhelming majority of State Farm customers surveyed by Insure.com said they trust the company. State Farm again had the highest scores in this category among the company’s we ranked.
Although almost every State Farm life insurance customer plans to renew, it did not have the same score as Prudential, Mutual of Omaha or AIG. However, a score of 99% for renewal rate is solid and puts it in the top half of companies in this category.
Founded in Illinois a century ago, State Farm started with a focus on good service and great value. The original mission was to treat its customers fairly. Since 1922, that mission still seems to hold true, and even has a presence in its business tagline: Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there
With 100 years of experience, State Farm services 84 million policies today and has become a leader in life insurance as well as home and auto insurance.
J.D. Power. “Individual Life Insurance Study.” Accessed December 2022.
Insure.com in the fall of 2022 surveyed more than 1,500 people with auto, home, life and health insurance (540 with life insurance). The survey was conducted by online market research company Slice MR. Respondents were asked to name their insurer and the editors then selected – based on the number of responses – the top companies for this year’s Best Life Insurance Companies ranking. 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.
Respondents were first asked to grade their insurer in the following categories – customer satisfaction, claims satisfaction 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 – including customer satisfaction and policy offerings. 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. 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 collected National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ complaint data, which ranks a company by the number of customer complaints it receives, and AM Best data, which measures financial strength.
They also collected insurance rate data from Quadrant Information Services (for auto and home insurance), Compulife (for life insurance) and the public health marketplace (for health insurance).
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 used the following weights to calculate the overall score for each company:
To find the industry average annual premium, insure.com weighed the rates from 9 companies: AAA, Farmers, Guardian Life, John Hancock, Lincoln Financial, MassMutual, New York Life, Northwestern Mutual and Transamerica. Rates are based on premiums for 35-year-old males and females who are non-smokers and in good health. Rates are for a 20-year-term policy that provides $500,000 in coverage.
No insurer in our star ranking received less than 1 star and the highest possible ranking is 5 stars.