How to Search for Complaints About Your Life Insurance Company

Researching life insurance companies, including finding recent complaints, is an important step in the insurance buying process. Before you buy your life insurance policies - or any insurance policies, for that matter - you should shop around to find the best policy and company.

You can check out how each company is rated on one of the many credit rating sites. You also can look for comments on customer service complaint sites such as those maintained by the Better Business Bureau or each state's Insurance Regulation Department.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners The NAIC accepts complaints about insurance companies, which they forward to a state's Insurance Department. You can search their site for Consumer Alerts about individual businesses. Better Business Bureau Every state has a Better Business Bureau. The Better Business Bureau forwards consumer complaints within two days to the company concerned, and the company is asked to respond within two weeks. If they don't respond, another request is sent. The BBB usually closes complaints within 30 days. According to their website, more than 70% of complaints filed through them are resolved. Fight Bad Faith Insurance Companies FBIC has been business since 1998. They accept complaints and positive feedback about insurance companies. Interestingly, their list of the top 100 bad faith insurance companies (unwillingness to pay on claims), contains some "big" names. Consumer Reports Consumer Reports is a well-established entity that reports on offerings from every type of company, including life insurance firms. Do a search for Life Insurance in the search box on their homepage and you'll find quite a few articles on the subject.

Your State's Insurance Regulator Check out the website of your state's Insurance Regulation Department. Every state will have such a department, and many of them feature alerts and other information related to specific companies, policies, or fraud warnings.