Best Health Insurance Companies of 2024 (2024)

Best Health Insurance Companies

Best Health Insurance Companies

Blue Cross Blue Shield features various high-quality, affordable health insurance plans nationwide. Strong consumer ratings help make it our top pick as the best overall health insurance provider.

Blue Cross Blue Shield takes home our award for all-around favorite due to its substantial availability and networks, relatively low costs, and the buffet of plans and metal types available.

BCBS enrollees live in all 50 states. BCBS boasts one of the largest provider networks overall, with 1.7 million providers. More than 90% of U.S. physicians accept plans from the carrier, providing robust coverage when you travel within the country.

BCBS also won our best overall cost score, which we calculated using price quotes across various age groups and metal tiers. We reviewed premiums, deductibles, and copays to determine the cost score. If you seek a silver ACA plan, you’re in luck because BCBS offers the best premium and deductible scores for silver plans of the companies we evaluated. BCBS has the best prices for 60-year-olds based on the quotes we gathered.

However, plans vary by region—BCBS is an insurance network comprising dozens of smaller entities. This can make it challenging to evaluate qualities like plan quality or customer satisfaction. But when we averaged the NCQA scores of several plans, BCBS emerged with an average NCQA rating of 3.59 out of 5 stars, second only to Kaiser on this list. Still, your specific plan’s NCQA score may vary.

BCBS’s range of plan types is among the widest offered by top insurance providers. In addition to often affordable but provider-restrictive health maintenance organization (HMO) plans, BCBS offers preferred provider organization (PPO) plans, exclusive provider organization (EPO) plans, and point-of-service (POS) plans.

You can choose from four metal levels (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) and catastrophic coverage, which is reserved for people under 30 or those who qualify for hardship or affordability exemptions.

We chose Kaiser Permanente for highest quality plans, thanks to its extraordinary customer satisfaction and quality rating. Kaiser’s well-priced premiums and deductibles make the insurer an even better option.

Kaiser Permanente’s quality and customer satisfaction score is incredibly strong compared to all of the other providers we reviewed. Kaiser’s plans achieve an average 4.2-star rating from the NCQA across various regions.

It’s one of only two commercial health insurers to achieve a 5-star NCQA rating (in the mid-Atlantic region of Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.). The company also came in first and second across multiple U.S. regions in the J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Commercial Health Plan Study.

Kaiser is also great for people looking for lower premiums and deductibles. For a broad age range (25-, 35-, and 45-year-olds), Kaiser offered the best premium-and-deductible costs. The insurer also scores best for its premium and deductible costs when looking at two metal categories of plans (bronze and gold).

But on the downside, Kaiser Permanente is only available in eight states and the District of Columbia. The insurer’s HMO plans typically restrict care to in-network providers and clinics. However, Kaiser Permanente offers plans in four metal levels plus catastrophic coverage. So you’ll have pricing options—as long as you want an HMO in a state the insurer serves.

Oscar is our pick for health management programs, thanks to the wide variety of programs available.

Oscar leads in medical management programs, offering nine plans that help with conditions ranging from asthma to depression to a program that rewards you for every step taken. While many insurers offer such programs, Oscar offers the most and is the only insurer we surveyed that provides a weight-loss program.

Oscar also has the lowest physician copays ($0 in many cases) for bronze and silver plans. With most Oscar plans, you can get $0 virtual primary and urgent care visits. If you hit your annual walking step goals, you’ll also receive $25 to $100 in Amazon gift cards.

Though not all plan types are available everywhere, Oscar offers all metal tiers except platinum—the most expensive tier—with PPOs, HMOs, and EPOs to choose from.

But with limited availability, residents of 32 states are left out of Oscar’s opportunities. Another negative to consider: Oscar's plans received an average NCQA 2.8-star rating, which indicates relatively poor member experiences.

On the plus side: Oscar works with partners to offer supplemental dental, vision, and hearing plans, along with plans to help cover accidents, life insurance, and serious illnesses (cancer, heart disease, and stroke).

Your Aetna CVS Health card gives you access to MinuteClinic services seven days (and evenings) a week, making it the best health insurance provider for same-day care.

If you need same-day or walk-in access to convenient, no- or low-cost healthcare seven days a week, Aetna’s MinuteClinic may be for you. The clinics are in metro areas in 36 states and Washington, D.C., so the insurance may be a good fit for people who are often on the road for work or pleasure.

These retail clinics allow you to handle routine health needs (such as immunizations) or urgent health issues. If the provider prescribes medication, you can pick up your meds right after your appointment—as the MinuteClinics are housed within retail pharmacies.

If your household qualifies for the premium tax credit, your monthly premium could be reduced to zero. Aetna tries to keep plan-provided benefits close to the minimum essential benefits required by federal law. As a result, the plan’s premium could be fully covered by the tax credit. In addition, Aetna’s expanded bronze pricing was the second-lowest among the insurers we surveyed.

If you’re trying to save money in other ways, Aetna gives enrollees a $25/quarter ($100/year) allowance toward CVS-branded wellness products and discounts on other products year-round.

Aetna offers HMO, PPO, EPO, and HMO-POS plans. However, these plans are only available in limited metal tiers: expanded bronze, silver, and gold. You can’t get platinum or bronze.

Unfortunately, Aetna is also one of the few providers we surveyed without catastrophic plans on the federal Health Insurance Marketplace. Catastrophic plans can be a good fit if you prefer to only pay for enough insurance to cover a big emergency—and you qualify for a catastrophic plan.

Also, Aetna’s plans only have an average NCQA rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars. That’s slightly below average for the companies we surveyed.