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Carrier standard

A- or better on life, disability, and long-term care.

That floor covers group coverage too. If a carrier drops below it, we stop placing new business there and keep servicing what is already in force. Property and casualty runs on a different standard.

A policy is a promise to pay decades from now.

The rating is the closest thing to an outside read on whether the company will still be able to keep that promise. A- is the lowest rating AM Best still calls Excellent. One step down the descriptor becomes Good, then Fair, then Marginal. Somewhere in that slide the difference between a carrier that is fine today and one that is fine in 2056 starts to outweigh whatever the premium savings were.

Carriers do get downgraded. When one of ours drops under the floor, we stop placing new business there. Clients who already own the policy keep it and we keep servicing it. A downgrade on its own is not a reason to replace coverage that is already in force, and treating it as one is how replacement churn gets justified.

Nothing here has to be taken on faith. AM Best publishes every rating, and any carrier below can be looked up in about thirty seconds.

Carriers we can consider through our brokerage access.

These names come from the product shelves available through our brokerage relationships. A listing is not a direct appointment or a promise that every product is open in every state. We confirm the issuing company, current product, state availability, and underwriting fit before recommending a placement.

Life

  • Allianz
  • American National
  • Ameritas
  • Assurity Life
  • Banner Life
  • Brighthouse Financial
  • Cincinnati Life
  • Columbus Life
  • Corebridge Financial
  • Equitable
  • Fidelity & Guaranty Life
  • Fidelity Life
  • Foresters
  • Gerber Life
  • Great Western
  • Guardian
  • Illinois Mutual
  • John Hancock
  • Lafayette Life
  • Life of the Southwest
  • Lincoln Financial
  • MassMutual
  • Mutual of Omaha
  • National Guardian Life
  • National Western
  • Nationwide
  • New York Life
  • North American
  • OneAmerica
  • Oxford Life
  • Pacific Life
  • Pan-American Life
  • Penn Mutual
  • Principal
  • Protective
  • Prudential
  • Royal Neighbors of America
  • SBLI of Massachusetts
  • Securian Financial (Minnesota Life)
  • Symetra
  • Transamerica
  • United Home Life
  • United of Omaha
  • Zurich

Disability

  • Ameritas
  • Assurity Life
  • Guardian
  • Illinois Mutual
  • MassMutual
  • Mutual of Omaha
  • Principal
  • The Standard
  • United of Omaha

Long-term care

  • Brighthouse Financial
  • Lincoln Financial
  • Mutual of Omaha
  • National Guardian Life
  • Nationwide
  • New York Life
  • OneAmerica
  • Securian Financial
  • Thrivent

Group life and disability

  • American Heritage Life
  • Principal
  • Reliance Standard
  • Sun Life Financial
  • Unum

Current as of August 2026. Availability shifts, and a few carriers write in some states and not others. If a case calls for one that is not here, we will tell you plainly whether we can reach it.

For unusual life or disability risks, we may also ask Petersen International Underwriters to assess specialty coverage. Petersen is a Lloyd's coverholder, not the insurer. We review the actual insurer and contract for any proposed specialty placement.

Property and casualty works differently.

Which carriers will write a home, auto, or umbrella policy changes by state and sometimes by ZIP code, and the appetite shifts month to month. A fixed list would be wrong the week after it was published, so we don't publish one.

The rating floor works differently here, and not because the standard is looser. A homeowners policy is a twelve-month contract you re-shop at renewal. A life policy is a promise that may not be called on for forty years, which is why the bar is higher on that side. What actually constrains a property and casualty placement is which carriers will write your risk in your state, and what their appetite is that month. Aligned Path gives you the carrier's current AM Best rating before anything binds.

What holds constant is that we are independent. No carrier owns the recommendation, and at renewal we re-shop rather than let a rate drift up unchallenged.

See which states we cover

What falls outside

The rejections say more than the lineup does.

Carriers under the floor

In practice the floor rarely decides a case, because most carriers writing meaningful volume sit above it. Where the ratings actually come up is policy review, on contracts a client bought years ago from a company that has since moved.

Genworth is the one advisors raise most. Worth being precise about it: Genworth Life Insurance Company stopped accepting new individual long-term care applications through the brokerage channel in 2019, and new Genworth-affiliated long-term care sales now run through a separate subsidiary, CareScout Insurance Company, which launched in October 2025. The legacy entities are closed to new business, so this is not a placement decision anyone still gets to make.

It matters for the block already out there. Both legacy Genworth life entities currently sit below the A- floor we hold for new business; their exact ratings are published on AM Best's site. When an advisor asks what that means for a client holding one, the answer is usually keep it. Long-term care contracts written fifteen years ago frequently carry terms that cannot be bought at any price today, and a rating by itself is not grounds to surrender one.

Carriers we have no access to

State Farm and Northwestern Mutual distribute their retail products through exclusive agent channels, so no independent brokerage places them. Aligned Path cannot reach either one.

None of that is a knock on what they issue. It does mean that a client who specifically wants one of them should go to that company's agent, and we will say so rather than talk them into something we can write.

Products sold on a projection

Fixed indexed annuities and indexed universal life get sold on an illustration far more often than they get sold on the contract. Depending on the contract, a carrier may reset nonguaranteed caps or participation rates for future index terms, subject to the guaranteed minimums in the policy. The illustration does disclose that it holds current nonguaranteed elements constant. That disclosure sits in the fine print of a document whose headline number assumes today's cap holds for thirty years.

Separately, the infinite banking material advisors get asked about is built on participating whole life, not indexed UL, and the two get conflated constantly, including by people selling them.

We don't lead with any of it. When a client already holds one, we read the actual contract and explain how it behaves, which is a different document from the one they were shown.

What advisors ask about carrier selection.

What is a good AM Best rating for a life insurance company?
AM Best rates financial strength on a scale running A++ and A+ (Superior), A and A- (Excellent), B++ and B+ (Good), B and B- (Fair), C++ and C+ (Marginal), C and C- (Weak), and D (Poor). A- is the lowest rating still described as Excellent, which is why it is a common floor for brokers who set one. Aligned Path places life, disability, long-term care, and group business only with carriers rated A- or better.
Which carriers does Aligned Path place business through?
Dozens of carriers across life, disability, long-term care, and group coverage, including Lincoln Financial, MassMutual, Pacific Life, Prudential, Protective, Principal, Guardian, Penn Mutual, Mutual of Omaha, John Hancock, Nationwide, Symetra, Securian Financial, Ameritas, and Banner Life. The full list by line is published on this page. Access runs through brokerage relationships rather than a single carrier's shelf. Property and casualty availability changes by state, so no fixed list is published for those lines.
Why can't an independent broker sell State Farm or Northwestern Mutual?
Both distribute their retail products through exclusive agent channels rather than through independent brokerages, so no outside broker can place them. That is a distribution choice on the carrier's part, not a judgment about the products. A client who specifically wants one of them should work with that company's own agent, and Aligned Path will say so rather than redirect them to something it can write.
Should a client replace a policy if the carrier's rating gets downgraded?
Usually not on the downgrade alone. A rating change affects whether new business should be placed there; it does not by itself make an in-force contract worth surrendering. Older long-term care and permanent life contracts in particular often carry terms that cannot be bought today, and replacing one resets contestability and suicide provisions and can trigger new underwriting. Aligned Path stops placing new business with a carrier that falls below its floor and keeps servicing the policies already there.
Does Aligned Path place Genworth long-term care coverage?
No, and neither does anyone else through the brokerage channel. Genworth Life Insurance Company stopped accepting new individual long-term care applications through brokerage in 2019, and new Genworth-affiliated long-term care sales moved to a separate subsidiary, CareScout Insurance Company, in October 2025. Both legacy Genworth life entities currently carry AM Best ratings below the A- floor Aligned Path holds for new business; the current ratings are published on AM Best's site. The recommendation for a client holding one of those contracts is usually to keep it.

Have a carrier or a contract you want a read on?

In-force policy reviews are a standing part of how we work with fee-only firms, and plenty of them end with keep what you have.

How a review worksGet in touch