rating on life insurance companies

if your interested in sitting with a company that only beleaves in level term life insurance you need to check out Primerica. They not only have great rates but are willing to educate you on the differences.

See the first thread you started.

can anyone tell me is Mass Mutual financial group is a well rated insurance company?

The strongest rated life insurer is Northwestern Mutual... Triple A by ALL the major rating services. As far as term or whole, it depends on your situation, usually there is a need for both.

If you want to learn more about the financial ratings of life insurance companies you may want to visit AM Best which is an independent rating firm that reviews the financial stability of insuranc ecompanies and issue financial strength ratings.

Also, here's a good article that explains life insurance company ratings.

When you request life insurance quotes online you usually get the AM Best rating with your quotes. You can ask your life insurance agent for the current rating as well.

Finally, there is a good article in Smart Money magazine November edition that explains the guaranty fund for life insurance companies and that the limit of coverage is usually around $300,000 per policy in many states.

By far of the three mentioned Mass Mutual is the strongest. There is a list that comes out every quarter by WEISS an indipendant agency which uses a combination of LIPER S&P and Moodeys to rate all of the life insurance companies. Of the three you provided on the list MASS Mutual is the only one that appears on the stongest list http://www.weissratings.com/HL_Life.asp
regardless of what other people have blogged about on this post neither primerica or northwestern mutual appear in the strongest catagory of the ratings as of march 2009.

Mark: With regards to your question I cant urge you more strongly stay away from PRIMERICA!!! It is safe to compare it to MLM. Of the 3 compainies suggested I would look seriously at Mass Mutual - only if you dont qualify for the Knights of Columbus. If you do they are an excellent choice S&P AAA AM Best A++.

Regards to all

Primerica is owned by citigroup, we all know how great they are doing. primerica is buy term and invest the difference philosophy, all i have to say about that is wow i wonder how that's working out...haha.... in regards to the 3 you are looking at. massmutual is the strongest of those 3.

now regards to Jason from LA: Northwestern Mutual is the only company with the highest ratings from all 4 major ratings companies.

if you are looking for quality and strength NM is the way to go. there isn't a permanent product out there that can out preform NM's whole life, i know this for a fact because i can run any company comparison out there. now if its term you are looking for NM might not have the lowest premium(lowest is not always a good thing) but they are the only company that with a disability waiver of premium on the policy they will not only pay your premium in the even of a long term disability, but they will also convert it to whole life and then pay the premium on that.(not only have coverage but also a cash value that you don't even have to pay into it, now what 401k or retirement plan gives you that option.)

Insurance Financial Strength (IFS) Ratings Overview
Rating Agency
A.M. Best A++ (Superior)
Fitch Ratings AAA (Exceptionally Strong)
Moody’s Aaa (Exceptional)
Standard & Poor’s AAA (Extremely Strong)

MassMutual
A.M. Best Company: A++ (Superior; top category of 15)
Fitch Ratings: AAA (Exceptionally Strong; top category of 21)
Moody's Investors Service: Aa1 (Excellent; second category of 21)
Standard & Poor's: AAA (Extremely Strong; top category of 21)

Northwestern Mutual is a great company and one of one a couple who have received the highest ratings, however, New York Life is on the same level if not higher than NM, and they too have a disability waiver of premium, as opposed to what Austin said about only NWM having that option. Their whole life is phenomenal as well.

I agree with Brent, New York Life and Northwest Mutual are triple a rated by all of the independant rating agencies. You will not find a better line of insurance products nor will you find better financial services professionals to work with.

In my experience New York Life is the best company out there. Not only is it triple A rated from all four rating agencies, there are only three companies that have those same ratings, and New York Life is the largest and most financially secure of all of them. My agent told me about something called Non Direct Recognition with my whole life policy. It has to do with when you take money out for supplemental retirement planning, college funding, etc. New York Life will still pay the dividend based on the full cash value that you had in there, as if you did not taken a loan out of your policy. I tried getting a Northwestern mutual agent to show me what it would look like if I wanted to take money out and they wouldn't! if you are comparing life insurance companies, ask them that same question when looking at illustrations. My NYL agent gladly showed me when noone else would.