Is Reliance Standard a Good Insurance Company?

Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company holds AM Best A++ (Superior) — the absolute highest rating of AM Best’s 15 rating levels — reaffirmed November 20, 2025, marking five consecutive years at that designation. Combined with S&P A+ (Strong) and Moody’s A1 (Strong), Reliance Standard achieves top-tier financial strength confirmation across all three major rating agencies simultaneously. The company was founded in 1907, has been a member of the Tokio Marine Group since 2012, and manages over $30.4 billion in assets. If the name Reliance Standard is unfamiliar, that is because most consumers encounter it without knowing it — the company is primarily a group benefits carrier, and if you have ever received disability income, group life insurance, dental, vision, critical illness, or hospital indemnity coverage through an employer, Reliance Standard may well have been the insurer behind that benefit without your ever seeing the name. At Diversified Insurance Brokers, Jason Stolz, CLTC, CRPC, DIA, CAA, evaluates Reliance Standard across both its individual annuity and group benefit product lines using the full market comparison that ensures you are not paying more — or accepting less — than what the competitive market offers.

Company Snapshot

The A++ Rating: What It Actually Means

AM Best A++ (Superior) is the highest rating the agency assigns. It is not just a superlative — it is a meaningful distinction. Fewer than 2% of all rated US life insurance companies hold A++ designations. Reaching that level requires not just strong capitalization but consistent operating performance, disciplined enterprise risk management, and sustained financial trajectory over multiple years. Reliance Standard first achieved A++ in 2021 and has maintained it for five consecutive years — a streak that demonstrates the rating is not a one-time achievement but a sustained standard. Combined with S&P A+ (one notch below the highest S&P category) and Moody’s A1 (the fifth-highest of Moody’s 21 categories), Reliance Standard achieves top-tier confirmation across all three major rating agencies simultaneously. For clients placing long-duration annuity contracts or large-premium disability coverage, this level of multi-agency rating consensus provides the strongest available third-party assurance of claims-paying ability. Tokio Marine’s backing — 145+ years of global insurance operations across property and casualty, reinsurance, and life — provides institutional permanence that reinforces the rating.

Group Benefits: Where Reliance Standard Dominates

Most of Reliance Standard’s market presence is in the employer group benefits space, specifically serving small-to-mid-size employers. If you have disability coverage through work, Reliance Standard may be the carrier — it is one of the largest group disability providers in the US. The group product portfolio is comprehensive: long-term disability (LTD), short-term disability (STD), group term life insurance, voluntary life, accident insurance, critical illness, hospital indemnity, dental, vision, and stop-loss insurance for self-funded employer health plans. The sister company Matrix Absence Management provides fully integrated absence management services — FMLA, state leave, ADA accommodation, and workers’ compensation coordination — alongside the group insurance products, which makes Reliance Standard a full-suite absence and benefits solution for employers. The recent acquisition of Standard Security Life, a leader in New York disability and Paid Family Leave, expanded Reliance Standard into the third-largest provider of those products nationwide. For clients who are self-employed or whose employer offers voluntary group disability, our resources on disability insurance for the self-employed, short-term disability, guaranteed issue group disability insurance, and how to buy short-term disability insurance online cover both the individual and employer-side disability planning context where Reliance Standard is most commonly encountered. For employers managing larger group health alongside disability, our resources on group health for 100 employees, group health for 150 employees, group health for consulting firms, and group health for law firms cover the larger employer planning context. For employers evaluating stop-loss alongside self-funded health plans, our resources on understanding stop-loss in level-funded plans and level-funded health insurance tax benefits cover the financing structure Reliance Standard serves with its stop-loss product line. For employees whose employer uses Reliance Standard and who want to understand what business travel accident coverage provides, our resource on business travel accident insurance covers this specific product type.

Individual Annuity Products: The Retirement Income Side

Reliance Standard’s individual annuity business is the part most consumers encounter in the retirement planning channel. The company generates over $1 billion in individual annuity premiums annually and sells in all 50 states and DC. The fixed annuity lineup centers on three product series. The Apollo is a traditional fixed annuity with an annually declared interest rate, seven-year surrender schedule, 10% penalty-free withdrawal, and a distinctive 4% bonus applied to the contract value if the policyholder annuitizes — a feature that rewards clients who commit to converting their accumulation to lifetime income at the end of the surrender period. Our full product review of the Reliance Standard Secure Growth Income Annuity covers the income-oriented product design in full detail. The Eleos MYGA provides a five-year guaranteed rate with 10% annual penalty-free withdrawal and is available with or without a market value adjustment provision. The Reliance Guarantee MYGA covers five, seven, and ten-year terms for clients who want the longest-duration guaranteed rate options. Our full product review of the Reliance Standard Reliance Guarantee 5 MYGA covers the term structure, rate tiers, and how it compares in a live multi-carrier MYGA context. For clients comparing the 4% annuitization bonus on the Apollo against direct income rider designs from other carriers, our resource on annuity versus 401(k) for retirement covers the accumulation-to-income comparison framework that underlies this product decision. For clients evaluating how long their savings will last without an annuity, our resources on how long a SEP IRA lasts in retirement and how long savings last in retirement cover the longevity risk context that motivates most MYGA purchases.

The Claims Handling Reality

Reliance Standard’s financial strength ratings are unambiguously top-tier. The consumer experience with claims — particularly group disability claims — is a more complicated story. Across multiple independent review platforms, the pattern of consumer complaints is consistent: denied disability claims, extended processing timelines, and policyholders reporting difficulty receiving benefits they believe they are contractually owed. These complaints are specifically concentrated in the group disability lines — which represents most of Reliance Standard’s consumer interactions — rather than the individual annuity products. It is important to understand the structural context: group disability insurance is a high-utilization product where insurers face genuine adverse selection and fraud pressure, and claim denials are not automatically evidence of bad faith. Some denials are legitimate and correct. But the consistency of the pattern in consumer reviews — across platforms and over time — suggests that claims administration friction is a real feature of the group disability experience at Reliance Standard, not an outlier story. For employees who have a disability claim denied and need to understand their options, our resource on whether disability insurance payments are taxable covers the tax treatment context alongside what benefits you are actually owed. For Medicare considerations that arise when long-term disability coverage ends, our resources on Medicare enrollment for people still working, Medicare Advantage versus Medicare Supplement, and the Medicare calculator cover the coverage decisions that follow a long-term disability event. For long-term care planning alongside disability income planning — the two protection products most commonly evaluated together — our resources on long-term care insurance for seniors and long-term care insurance for diabetics cover the LTC planning dimension. For survivors and spouses navigating benefit decisions, our resources on claiming Social Security for widows, Social Security spousal benefits after divorce, and Social Security survivor benefits for children cover the income replacement planning that intersects with disability events and employer benefit administration decisions.

For employer clients evaluating ACA alternatives alongside their Reliance Standard group benefits relationship, our resource on ACA alternatives for employer healthcare covers the level-funded, self-funded, and association plan alternatives that often arise in conversations where disability and stop-loss are also under review.