Life Insurance Safety Ratings Hold Steady with Fewer Downgrades

In one of my earlier articles, I talked about the importance of your life insurer’s safety and stability. After all, the relationship between you and your insurer can last decades and you need to make sure you pick the right company from the get-go.

So, whether you have an existing policy or just beginning to shop around, we have the right tools and most up to date data for you to look at. Weiss Safety Ratings are updated quarterly for each industry: insurance, banks, and credit unions.

We have just finished analyzing Q2 2017 insurance filings and have the latest ratings on over 650 life and annuity insurance companies.

The results show that the industry’s ratings have remained strong with only minor changes. Over half of the companies, (56.6%), continued to hold “A” and “B” ratings, that’s an increase of 1% since the last quarter.

Less than a third, 27.6% were rated “C”, down by 0.9%. And only 15.8% were rated “D” or “E”, down 0.1% since the prior quarter.

The number of downgrades dropped significantly to only seven companies in Q2 2017, there were 31 downgrades at the year-end 2016. Upgrades dropped slightly but remained close to the prior two quarters.

Now let’s take a look at some of the highest rated companies in the industry. These top ten insurers maintained the same high ratings since the beginning of 2016 and as you can see in the table below, most of them are some of the larger companies around.

Top 10 Rated Life Insurers

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the lowest rated life insurers. There are only four companies in the bottom “E-“ range, the rest are rated “E”.

10 Lowest Rated Life Insurers

Our latest ratings suggest that the life insurance industry continues to hold steady with most of its companies rated highly by Weiss. The number of upgrades remained consistent with the prior quarters and downgrades have dropped indicating positive trends in the industry.

But even in the good times you want to stay vigilant, so be sure to add your insurer to your Watchlist, so we can send you an email if a change in rating takes place.

Think Safety,

Gavin Magor

Insurance Insights Edition, By Gavin Magor, Senior Financial Analyst Gavin has more than 30 years of international experience in credit-risk management, commercial lending and insurance, banking and stock analysis and holds an MBA. Gavin oversees the Weiss ratings process, developing the methodology for Weiss’ Sovereign Debt and Global Bank Ratings. Gavin has appeared on both radio and television, including ABC and NBC as an expert in insurance, bank and stock ratings and has been quoted by CNBC, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Reuters as well as several regional newspapers and trade media.