The fact that one person (much less 1 million people) buy a particular life insurance plan from a particular company is not exactly a reason to go out and do the same but it’s interesting to at least take a look at market share. Let’s get a snapshot of the U.S. life insurance market by company share and see if we can gleam any information that helps us make a better decision.
First, we’ll list out the top 10 carriers. Keep in mind that life insurance can come in many forms from whole life to term life and everything in between. Most of the data on market share is a measurement of premium amount and whole life by definition is going to make up a big part of that since it’s so much more expensive than term life. Now for the drum roll of the top 10. This data is from 2007 and needless to say, things have changed a bit.
1. AIG (American International Group). This isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement that bigger is better. In 2007, AIG had 18% of the market share with almost 30.5 Billion (yes that’s billion) in premium for the year. That’s a staggering figure…especially in hindsight now that we know how AIG almost collapsed. Life insurance policy holders are protected up to a point by State Guarantee Funds for $250K to $300K of total life insurance policy. Still, the take-away from the biggest becoming one of the most unstable means we need to find other measurements. $250K is typically under what many people choose as a life insurance amount so we don’t want to rely on State Guarantee Funds to protect our life insurance protection into the future.
2. Metropolitan Life (also called Met life with the Snoopy mascot). Less than half of AIG, MET Life comes in at over 7%. Met is a strong life insurance company that has managed the storm well. The company is conservative but in the right way.
3. Hartford. Hartford comes in at just under 5%. As we go down, the separation between market share percentages narrows significantly. Rounding out the spot 3 through 7 are long established life insurance companies. At this point, it comes down to the carrier rating and life insurance rate for your particular situation.
4. Northwestern Life. 4.75%
5. Prudential LIfe 4.53%
6. New York Life 3.79%
7. Aegon 3.54%
8. Lincoln National 2.9%
9. John Hancock 2.83%
10. Mass Mutual 2.56%
Needless to say, there are countless other life insurance companies, many of which are very competitive and included in our term life insurance quoting engine. You almost can’t be in the life insurance business (in our view) without very high ratings from the rating agencies. New companies (at least, new to life insurance) are bringing products to the market that are innovative. We constantly re-evaluate the market to make sure we have best offering of life insurance plans for you. We’re not so much concerned with market share as finding the best fit for our clients. It’s what we do.
