Best Term Life Insurance Company Winners

Each year, LifeInsuranceRates.com bestows a prestigious award upon an outstanding term life insurance provider. This coveted honor, called the Best Term Life Insurance Company Award, is reserved only for the most exceptional term life carriers in the industry. Award recipients must meet rigorous standards of financial strength, policyholder satisfaction, policy selection, availability, and coverage affordability. LifeInsuranceRates.com provided the award most recently in 2009 to New York Life. Read on for details on why New York Life was selected to receive LifeInsuranceRates.com's highest honor.

Financial Strength and Consistency

Financial stability and strength are critical to the sustainability of term life insurance, and thus also important considerations in the granting of the Best Term Life Insurance Company Award. On the 2010 Fortune 100 list, New York Life ranked #64, making the carrier the highest privately held insurer on the list. In June of 2009, New York Life accomplished the impressive feat of earning the highest possible financial ratings from all four major independent rating companies: A.M. Best, Standard and Poor's, Fitch, and Moody's.

After a recession that devastated the assets and surpluses of many insurers, New York Life emerged unscathed as one of the few life insurers whose financial ratings were not downgraded during the economic crisis. Currently, New York Life is one of only three term life insurance companies to boast the highest possible financial ratings from all four major independent rating services. As of this writing, New York Life owns $287 billion in total assets, with more than $15 billion in surplus and AVR.

Diversity of Products and Services

An important criterion to win the Best Term Life Insurance Company Award is the existence of a wide array of term life insurance products and services to accommodate diverse customer needs. New York Life offers term life, annuities, mutual funds, and long-term care insurance in all 50 states. Subsidiaries of the company also offer asset management and retirement-planning services for policyholders and non-policyholders.

Company History

Founded in 1845, New York Life is one of the oldest and most respected underwriters of term life insurance policies. New York Life is currently the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States and one of the largest in the world. Few insurers have the domestic and worldwide presence that New York Life does, which is one of the many reasons the insurer earned the Best Term Life Insurance Company Award for 2009. New York Life is headquartered in New York City, with Ted Mathas currently serving as CEO.