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Our take
Cigna is a good health insurer for people who want access to a big provider network and strong integration with pharmacy benefits.
Customers give it good marks for affordability and the company has a strong 3.2 out of 5 stars rating from the National Committee for Quality Assurance. NCQA evaluates healthcare plans on, among other things, member satisfaction.
It’s one of the country’s oldest and biggest health insurers with about 17 million members, and has a big network, but didn’t score as well as competitors in some categories, such as policy offerings.
Overall, it was No. 13 in Insure.com’s list of the Best Health Insurance Companies for 2024, earning 3.6 stars (actually, 3.63 stars) out of 5.
Cigna Ratings
Ranked No. 13 Overall
Overall Rating: 3.6 
How we weight our score
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Price/Affordability: 3.9
NCQA: 3.21
Customer Satisfaction: 4.0
AM Best Rating: AM Best's Financial Strength Rating is an independent opinion of an insurer's financial strength and ability to meet its ongoing insurance policy and contract obligations. What is this rating?
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Large provider network
- Strong integration with drug and dental with dental plans offered in all 50 states
- Customers give it good marks for affordability
Cons:
- A big footprint, but its individual and family plans are limited to 16 states
- Didn’t rate as highly as other companies in the ranking for policy offerings
Below is Insure.com’s review of the company. It’s based on third-party metrics and an in-depth survey of insurance customers. Find the full methodology here, including an explanation of our survey scores.
How much does Cigna health insurance cost?
Customers gave Cigna a good score for affordability. It received 3.9 out of 5 stars in this category, which Kaiser Permanente led. It also ranked highly for having low deductibles. However, Cigna doesn’t always have the lowest prices (see below).
| Insurance company | Price/affordability stars |
|---|---|
| Cigna | 3.92 |
| Kaiser Permanente | 4.34 |
| UnitedHealthcare | 3.95 |
Below is a look at how Cigna rates in North Carolina compare with UnitedHealthcare and Aetna. These are 2024 healthcare exchange rates for a single, 40-year-old male in excellent health with an annual income of $70,000.
| Insurance company | Rate/Month | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Cigna | $560.22 | Connect Silver CMS Standard – HMO |
| UnitedHealthcare | $531.38 | UHC Silver Standard – HMO |
| Aetna | $468.32 | Silver 2 – HMO |
How Cigna scores for customer satisfaction
Cigna received almost 4 out of 5 stars for customer satisfaction. Kaiser Permanente had the highest score in this category. The company also matched up well with competitors in J.D. Power’s 2023 U.S. Commercial Member Health Plan Study study for California. J.D. Power measures health plans for overall customer satisfaction.
| Insurance company | Customer satisfaction stars | J.D. Power overall satisfaction score (out of 1,000) |
|---|---|---|
| Cigna | 3.95 | 714 |
| Kaiser Permanente | 4.45 | 749 |
| Aetna | 3.98 | 717 |
How Cigna scores for policy offerings
Cigna does have a large portfolio of offerings, and three-fourths of customers rated it highly here. However, a number of companies scored higher in this category, which BCBS of Michigan led.
| Insurance company | Percent of customers who score their insurance company highly for policy offerings |
|---|---|
| Cigna | 74% |
| BCBS of Michigan | 88% |
| Aetna | 73% |
Would current customers recommend Cigna to others?
Yes, 85% of customers said they would recommend the company to others. BCBS of Michigan led this category with all the customers we surveyed saying they would tell their friends and family about the company.
| Insurance company | Percent of customers who would recommend their health insurance company to others |
|---|---|
| Cigna | 85% |
| BCBS of Michigan | 100% |
| Aetna | 83% |
How trustworthy is Cigna?
Most customers trust Cigna. More than 70% of customers rated it as trustworthy, although several competitors ranked higher. But it should be noted that Kaiser was the only company with more than 85% of its customers giving it high marks here.
| Insurance company | Percent of customers who say they trust their health insurance company |
|---|---|
| Cigna | 72% |
| Kaiser Permanente | 86% |
| Elevance | 69% |
Do current Cigna customers plan to renew?
The majority say yes. While satisfaction rates could be higher, Cigna’s large provider network meets customers’ needs. BCBS of Michigan and Highmark led this category
| Insurance company | Percent of customers who plan to renew with their health insurance company |
|---|---|
| Cigna | 85% |
| BCBS of Michigan, Highmark | 98% |
| HCSC | 84% |
How Cigna scores for digital experience
Of the companies we ranked, Cigna had the second-highest score in this category. But it should be noted that none of the bigger insurers did particularly well here.
| Insurance company | Percent of customers who highly rank the company’s digital experience |
|---|---|
| Cigna | 26% |
| Kaiser Permanente | 32% |
| Aetna | 25% |
How Cigna scores for low deductibles
Cigna, along with Aetna and HCSC, topped this category, although none of the insurers in our survey did particularly well here. A deductible is the amount of money you have to pay out-of-pocket for health care services before your health insurance plan begins to pay.
| Insurance company | Percent of customers who highly rank the company for low deductibles |
|---|---|
| Cigna | 31% |
| Aetna | 31% |
| HCSC | 31% |
How Cigna scores for its provider network
The company says it has one of the biggest provider networks in the business, and customers seem to agree. It had one of the best scores for this category, but it should be noted that this was another category where none of the companies we ranked did particularly well. Molina led this category.
| Insurance company | Percent of customers who highly rank the company’s provider network |
|---|---|
| Cigna | 23% |
| Molina | 31% |
| Aetna | 21% |
Cigna health insurance coverage options
- Plans for individuals and families
- Medicare and Medicaid plans
- Plans for employers
- Government plans
- International plans
- Pharmacy plans
Additional Cigna services
- Dental
- Vision
- Savings and spending accounts
- Supplemental insurance
States where Cigna offers coverage
Graph
Table
| States where Cigna offers coverage |
|---|
| Arizona |
| California |
| Colorado |
| Connecticut |
| Florida |
| Georgia |
| Maryland |
| Missouri |
| North Carolina |
| South Carolina |
| Tennessee |
| Texas |
Available
Not available
Company background
Cigna’s history dates back to the years following the American Revolution. In 1792, at a meeting in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, a group of prominent citizens formed the Insurance Company of North America (INA). INA was one of the first marine insurance companies formed in the United States.
It had an illustrious history, including playing a big role in helping the great Chicago fire survivors rebuild their homes. Fast forward to 1982, when Cigna was formed with the merger of the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company and INA. The name is a mix of the letters of the merged companies. Until 1997, Cigna was also a big player in the life insurance business, but it sold most of those operations to Lincoln National to focus on healthcare and dental insurance.
Today, Cigna offers individual and family health insurance plans in 16 states, Medicare in 26 states, and dental plans in all 50 states. Cigna also has a big dental insurance business, with plans offered in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. In 2018 Cigna acquired Express Scripts in a deal valued at $67 billion, bringing it in step with such competitors as CVS Health (Aetna) and UnitedHealthcare, by combining health insurance with drug plans.
Resources and Methodology
Sources:
Cigna. Accessed February 2024
Methodology
Insure.com in the fall of 2023 surveyed more than 1,750 insurance consumers (1,433 people with health insurance). The survey was conducted by online market research company Slice MR.
Respondents were asked to name their insurer and then grade it in a number of categories, including ease of service and policy offerings. The percentage of respondents who said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their insurer is presented in the results.
In addition, the editors also created star rankings for each company. Respondents were asked to pick their insurer’s top three attributes out of the more than the dozen they were presented – including categories such as customer satisfaction and price/affordability. The number of responses for each of those attributes was totaled and then divided by the number of each company’s customers who responded to that survey question to create the star ranking.
Respondents were also asked if they would recommend their insurer to someone else and if they planned to renew their policies. The percentage who said yes is presented in the results.
They also were given the statement “I trust my insurance company” and asked if they strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement. The percentage of those who said they agreed or strongly agreed is presented in the results.
The editors compiled the survey results and then selected – based on the number of survey responses – the top companies for further evaluation. Insure.com needed 30 or more of a health insurer’s customers to respond to the survey for a company to be included in the ranking.
They then collected AM Best financial stability ratings and National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) ratings, which evaluate health plans on, among other things, member satisfaction.
With the help of Prof. David Marlett, Ph.D., managing director of the Brantley Risk and Insurance Center at Appalachian State University, the editors created a rating system to determine which insurance companies were best in each sector. For health insurers, we used the following weights to calculate the overall score for each company:
- Survey – 60% of total score (10% for customer satisfaction, 10% trustworthiness, 10% for recommending the carrier to another, 10% if a respondent would renew with their current insurer, and 20% if they consider their insurer the best for affordability)
- AM Best – 25% of total score
- NCQA – 15% of total score
Each insurer was awarded from 1 to 5 stars. No insurer in our star ranking received less than 1 star and the highest possible ranking is 5 stars.
On company review pages, the editors compared the profiled insurers in various categories against the leaders in that category or against other top insurers that match up well against the profiled company in terms of size and/or coverage area.
