How this research is actually done.

We do not copy a carrier's grade from another review, a rate aggregator, or the carrier's own marketing. Each rating on this site was read from AM Best's own rating action — the press release or the rating search — and the carrier page states the month we checked it. A rating without a date is not a rating, because grades and outlooks change without notice and most published reviews never revisit them.

Ratings across the site were last verified in August 2026.

Several carriers we cover carry negative outlooks, recent downgrades, elevated complaint indices, regulatory settlements, or reported subpoenas. Those facts sit in the main body of the carrier's own page — not in a footnote, and not omitted because the carrier is otherwise strong. If a fact would change a reasonable buyer's decision, it belongs above the fold.

Examples: the July 2026 Group 1001 outlook revisions, and Equitable's 2022 SEC settlement.

Rate tables are the most-visited pages in this industry and the fastest to become false. A MYGA rate published today can be withdrawn tomorrow, and a page that shows a stale 6.15% is worse than a page showing nothing — it sends someone to a carrier expecting a number that no longer exists. Instead we explain the structure behind rates: what a guaranteed minimum is, how renewal rates work, and what to get in writing. Where a rate matters to a story, we describe the pattern rather than quote a figure we cannot maintain.

Every table on this site — payout amortization, present value factors, the split-annuity division, the lottery payment schedule — is generated by running the formula, then verified against an independent calculation before publication. Figures are exact to the cent at the inputs shown. Where a number cannot be computed honestly, most importantly lifetime income pricing, we refuse to print one rather than generate something plausible.

There is no paid placement, no sponsored ranking, and no advertising on this site. No insurance company has reviewed, approved, or funded any page. If that ever changes, it will be disclosed on the page it affects and in this section, dated.

Carrier ratings link to AM Best. Guaranty coverage links to your state association. Complaint data links to the NAIC. Licensing links to your state insurance department and, where securities are involved, to FINRA. Tax treatment links to the relevant IRS publication. We would rather you check our work than take it on faith — and where we could not verify something, we say so on the page instead of quietly leaving it out.

This site is written by one person and it will contain errors. When a factual error is found, the page is corrected and the change is reflected in the verification date rather than made silently. If you find something wrong — a rating that has moved, a figure that does not compute, a rule that has changed — tell us and we will fix it. That is a genuinely useful thing to receive and we would rather hear it from you than from a reader who acted on it.