Disability Insurance - Claims Experience Differences Between Companies?

[readicculus]

I'm currently shopping for disability insurance. Does anyone know if there is a meaningful difference in the claims experience between the various disability insurance companies? I'm curious if the slightly increased cost for Guardian compared to Ohio National or Principal is potentially worth it should a claim ever need to be made.

Anybody have any insight or experiences to share?

Thanks in advance.

[jbmitt]

Rex wrote:

No data exists

This likely isn’t by accident

Let’s pretend company X is known for easier claims. Who do you think gets all the questionable clients. Also such company would have to charge a lot more bc they pay more often even without questionable clients and would likely go through adverse negative selection or price themselves out of market.

Click to expand...

I'm going to take a contrasting position.  For years, J.D. Power has done insurance claims satisfaction rating and awards.  It does not specifically include disability insurance, but many of the same carriers are represented.

http://www.jdpower.com/ratings/industry/insurance

If you look under the life insurers, many of the big players, including Guardian and Principal are listed.

http://www.jdpower.com/ratings/study/U.S.-Life-Insurance-Study/3090ENG

To Rex's point, there is less data available for disability insurance than other lines of personal insurance because not everyone has it and the frequency of losses is much lower, but the severity is much higher.  The claim handling among the top 6 DI carriers should be fairly comparable.