How to research your insurance company

Researching your insurance company can lead to all sorts of helpful information. You may find that your insurance company has a pattern of denying claims and you may be able to find out the stories of other people in a similar situation. Sometimes, after an insurance company gets bought out by a larger conglomerate, the new company looks for ways to cut costs, i.e. claims. This information may be useful in a bad faith claim. Or you may find out that your insurance company is already being investigated for bad claims practices. That actually happened to us when we did some research on an insurance company that was unreasonably denying benefits for long term care patients. Turns out there was a congressional investigation going on, investigating this same company for doing the same thing to other patients nationwide.

The best and easiest way to investigate is by hitting the internet.

However, you will need to know some useful key words in order to maximize your efforts. They are:

• Long term care insurance bad faith (name of your insurance company)
  
  
• Long term care insurance claims denied (name of your insurance company)
  
  
• Long term care insurance (name of your insurance company)
  
  
• Nursing home insurance (name of your insurance company)
  
  
• Assisted living insurance (name of your insurance company)
  
  
• Insurance fraud (name of your insurance company)
  
  

Independent Rating Services

In addition, there are four independent rating services that track the financial health of U.S. insurance companies. These services are Standard and Poor's (standardandpoors.com), AM Best (ambest.com), Weiss Ratings (weissratings.com), and Fitch Ratings (fitchratings.com). Each company has a comprehensive website and rates most American insurance companies.

You can also do a general search on the internet about coverage and what should be expected behavior from insurance companies. In other words, how are they supposed to handle claims? You might have come across our website by doing that very thing. We have an article on the 10 things your insurance company doesn't want you to know which addresses these issues. We also have links (found in our tips if your claim has been denied or delayed) to other articles and websites about long term care insurance.

The most popular insurance companies which sell long term care insurance are listed below:

• Genworth Financial
• Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.
• Bankers Life and Casualty Co.
• Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America
• MedAmerica Insurance Co.
• New York Life Insurance Co.
• Mutual of Omaha Insurance Co.
• Northwestern Long Term Care Insurance Co.
• MassMutual Life Insurance Co.
• Equitable Life & Casualty Insurance Co.
• Medico Insurance Co.
• Penn Treaty America Corporation
• Conseco
• John Hancock
• Prudential Financial
• Banker's Life and Casualty Co.