Which Life Carriers are Quickest? Best underwriting? Easiest to work with?

Posted by Lloyd Silver on Fri, Dec 17, 2010 @ 11:34 AM

With more than 40 different carriers available at Provada, it can often be time consuming to find the best one for a particular situation. Many factors are involved in carrier selection including pricing, the financial strength of the carrier, underwriting offers, capacity, etc.

The case management and underwriting team at Provada recently reviewed all of the carriers with whom we've had enough recent experience to subjectively judge their results in three areas: Underwriting, Timeliness, and the overall Ease of Doing Business. Provada clients with the appropriate website permissions can view the complete results at http://www.provada.com/client-center/life-insurance-carrier-rankings.

Please keep in mind that these rankings are both subjective and subject to change at any time. And just because a carrier scores well in our ranks, or fails to score well, doesn't mean that they are right or not right for a particular situation. We are continuously working with our carrier reps to offer them feedback with the hopes that we'll see an improvement in their service. Additionally, all carriers go through cycles where due to a variety of factors (product pricing, change in management, new technology, etc.) their service standards change.

The two carriers that scored the highest (an "A") in all three categories were John Hancock and Lincoln Financial. Both carriers have been incredibly easy to work with, quick in processing applications and requirements, and have made excellent underwriting offers.

Other carriers who have scored at least a "B" in each category include Aviva, The Hartford, Principal Financial, Prudential, Transamerica, and West Coast Life.

Keep these rankings in mind when selecting a carrier but again, we do a lot of business for very good reasons with carriers who don't necessarily score at the top. These carriers can still offer excellent pricing and decent underwriting, but might just be a little slow in getting applications inforce. But they might be best for a particular situation. So it might be that both you and your clients need to set realistic expectations on the length of the process, but it's a wise choice in carriers.

We'll be updating this list as our experiences change.