The ledger
Eight major individual life insurers, ordered by the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Individual Life Insurance Study, average 650. Complaint index and market share come from NAIC data, financial strength from dated AM Best actions. No score on this page is ours.
| Carrier | J.D. Power 2025 life score (study avg 650) | AM Best financial strength | NAIC complaint index, individual life (1.00 = expected) | 2024 market share, individual life (NAIC) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northwestern Mutual | 677 (#5 of 22) | A++ (Superior), Nov 2025, 35th straight year | 0.04 | 8.66% (#1) |
| MassMutual | 671 (#6) | A++ (Superior), affirmed Oct 2025 | 0.11 | 5.52% (#3) |
| New York Life | 656 (#8) | A++ (Superior), affirmed Jul 2026 | 0.28 | 5.76% (#2) |
| Pacific Life | 652 (#10) | A+ (Superior), affirmed Dec 2025 | 0.09 | 3.28% (#8) |
| Prudential | 650 (#12, at the average) | A+ (Superior), affirmed Feb 2026 | 1.01 | 5.08% (#4) |
| Lincoln Financial | below avg (#14; score not published) | A (Excellent), affirmed Mar 2026 | 0.46 | 4.08% (#5) |
| Protective | below avg (#20; score not published) | A+ (Superior), affirmed Sep 2025 | 0.21 | 3.49% † (#7, parent group) |
| Banner (Legal & General America) | not in study | A (Excellent), downgraded from A+ Mar 2026 | 0.35 | 1.05% (#27) |
The 2025 study’s top scores belonged to Mutual of Omaha (707), State Farm (697), and Nationwide (695); the table here covers the eight carriers whose full public data set could be verified. Northwestern Mutual pairs the top market share with a complaint index of 0.04, one twenty-fifth of the expected volume for its size. Lincoln Financial and Protective ranked 14th and 20th of 22, below the study average; J.D. Power’s published chart does not reproduce below-average scores, and this page does not guess them. † Protective reports market share under its parent, Dai-ichi Life Holdings, so its figure is an upper bound. Banner was downgraded to A (Excellent) in March 2026 after Meiji Yasuda completed its acquisition of Legal & General America.
The order is the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Individual Life Insurance Study, 5,065 policyholders surveyed August 2024 to July 2025, released October 9, 2025, average 650 of 1,000. Complaint indexes come from 2026 review aggregations of the latest NAIC individual-life data; the exact complaint year is not stated by the aggregator, and that caveat stays on the page. Market share is the NAIC 2024 individual life line, group level. AM Best ratings carry their action dates. Where a figure could not be verified, the cell says so instead of holding a number.
Every figure on this page traces to the records below, with the data vintage stated in the table.