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Financial Rating Companies
Selecting
the right insurance company for you involves taking into consideration
several factors. Some factors to consider are obvious, such as
price and levels of coverage. However, many customers fail to
consider one of the most important factos, which is the financial
strength or financial rating of the company.
Financial ratings are indicators of an insurer's ability to pay present
and future claims and benefits. If an insurance company's
financial strength is poor and it is not able to pay you the claim or
benefit amounts it has promised to you, all of the other factors become
irrelevant. Therefore, take the time to check the financial
ratings of the insurance company(ies) you are thinking of doing
business with before you start the policy.
For your convenience, we have provided links below to the 5 independent
agencies that rate the financial strength of insurance companies.
They are not listed in any particular order.
A.M. Best Company
Standard &
Poor's
Moody's Investors Service
Fitch Ratings
Weiss Ratings
NOTE:
It is always best to check the financial strength of your insurance
company with several of the rating agencies, because insurance
companies tend to
highlight only the highest ratings they receive from one or two of the
agencies and conveniently disregard the lower ratings they may have
received from the other agencies, or they may only emphasize the
positive parts of an agency's rating.
Generally speaking, all of the larger insurance companies have
sufficient financial strength that you will probably never have to
worry about them being able to pay your claims or benefits in a timely
manner. However, the financial ratings of companies generally
become more important when you are considering starting a policy with a
lesser-known or smaller insurance company. Smaller or
lesser-known companies may have very high financial ratings as well,
but it would probably serve you well to check them more closely.
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