2024 MetLife Review

MetLife may be an appealing choice for many prospective customers due to its favorable customer satisfaction and complaint scores combined with its expansive coverage options when it comes to group life insurance, supplemental health insurance and other useful coverages like pet insurance. However, since MetLife is primarily in the business of providing employee benefit programs, whether you can obtain coverage through MetLife will be your employer’s decision more so than your own.

You can read the rest of our MetLife insurance review below to find out more about MetLife’s life insurance policies and why access to individual coverage types like home and car insurance is no longer available.

MetLife auto insurance review summary: MetLife sold its auto insurance business to Farmers in 2021 and now focuses on providing life insurance, accident and health insurance and other types of group coverage. MetLife home insurance review summary: Similarly, all of the home insurance policies previously underwritten by MetLife are now handled by Farmers. MetLife stopped selling individual insurance policies through agents in 2017, so if you’re interested in obtaining MetLife insurance, you’ll have to get it through your employer.

MetLife Insurance Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
High customer satisfaction rating for individual life insurance according to J.D. Power	Coverage is only available through your employer
Low rate of complaints for group life insurance according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)	No longer offers homeowners insurance or auto insurance
Mobile app has largely positive reviews	High rate of complaints for individual life insurance according to the NAIC
Numerous life insurance and supplemental health insurance coverage options

About MetLife

MetLife traces its roots to the National Union Life and Limb Insurance Company, which started selling policies in 1864 to cover sailors and soldiers who risked developing disabilities during the Civil War. The company later shifted its focus to life insurance and changed its name to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1868.^[1]

Toward the end of the 1870s, MetLife adopted the insurance agent business model that had already been popularized in England and began to expand its business among industrial workers. In 1909, MetLife became the life insurance company with the highest number of active policies in the United States and it remains the largest American life insurance carrier to this day.^[1][2]

Availability

MetLife is licensed to operate in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.^[3] However, not every coverage type the company offers is available in every region where the company does business. For example, MetLife only provides paid family and medical leave benefits in D.C., Puerto Rico and the following states:^[4]

Arkansas	Minnesota
Alabama	New Hampshire
California	New Jersey
Colorado	New York
Connecticut	Oregon
Delaware	Rhode Island
Florida	Tennesse
Hawaii	Texas
Maine	Virginia
Maryland	Vermont
Massachusetts	Washington

Coverage

MetLife predominantly sells group insurance products to businesses looking to set up their employee benefit programs. The main coverage types offered by MetLife include:

• Life
• Accident and health
• Disability
• Dental
• Vision
• Pet
• Legal
• Identity and fraud protection

In 2017, MetLife stopped selling new individual policies through agents as its American retail business branched off into the independent Brighthouse Financial, although MetLife did not terminate existing individual insurance policies.^[5] In addition, MetLife previously sold group homeowners and auto insurance but discontinued these products after selling its property and casualty (P&C) business to Farmers Insurance in 2021.^[6]

Consumer Experience

Line of Business	J.D. Power Score (Out of 1,000)[7]	NAIC Complaint Index[8]	NAIC Share of Complaints in U.S. Market[8]
General	N/A	0.49	0.72%
Group Life	N/A	0.65	13.79%
Individual Life	802	3.98	5.05%

Customer Service

Customers in need of support can go to the contact webpage on MetLife’s website and select the service they have questions about. From there, they will be shown phone numbers they can call, contact forms they can use to send their questions to a representative from MetLife or links to other webpages where they can find the information they need.^[9]

MetLife placed in the top five for customer satisfaction among life insurance companies analyzed in a 2023 J.D. Power study, with its Brighthouse Financial spin-off ironically ranking dead last. However, this study only took individual life insurance into account, meaning MetLife’s score was based on the experiences of consumers who purchased individual policies before 2017 and may not necessarily reflect the quality of customer service experienced by group life insurance policyholders.^[7]

That said, MetLife did receive a low rate of complaints related to group life insurance relative to its market share in 2022 according to data from the NAIC. Conversely, it had an exceptionally high rate of complaints related to individual life insurance, receiving nearly four times more complaints than expected.^[8]

Features

By downloading the MetLife US App, policyholders can manage their benefits, view ID cards, file claims and more. MetLife insurance reviews for the mobile app have been largely positive, suggesting users have encountered a helpful experience on the app for the most part.^[10][11]

Platform	Number of Reviews	Star Rating
App Store	15.2K	4.2/5
Google Play	6.9K	3.8/5

In addition, veterans may be able to access special coverage options through MetLife. For example, MetLife offers dental coverage through the Veteran Affairs Dental Insurance Program (VADIP), which comes with no deductible and no waiting period for most major procedures.^[12]

Pricing

MetLife lists starting rates for a few of its insurance products online such as $264 per year for legal insurance, $9 per month for cat health insurance and $15 per month for dog health insurance.^[13][14] Since you can only get MetLife insurance through your employer, you should contact your company’s human resources (HR) department for further information about how much you would have to pay for coverage.

Claims

All of the information you should need to file an insurance claim with MetLife is available on the company’s website. You can usually file a claim via the company’s online claims center or a coverage-specific claims portal. Depending on the situation, you may also be able to file an insurance claim via phone, email, fax or mail.^[15]

Policies MetLife Offers

If your employer offers coverage through MetLife, you may be able to obtain life insurance, supplemental health insurance and more as part of your employee benefits. Read below for more details about some of the major coverage options available to MetLife customers.

Life

MetLife’s primary group life insurance products include term life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance, universal life insurance and variable universal life insurance. In addition, the company offers life insurance add-ons like employee-paid supplemental life insurance, coverage for dependents like children and spouses and voluntary retiree life insurance that provides term life insurance coverage for employees after they retire.^[16]

Accident and Health

In addition, MetLife offers multiple types of supplemental health insurance plans you may be able to purchase to complement your major medical coverage. These include accident insurance, critical illness insurance, hospital indemnity insurance and cancer insurance.^[17] You may also be able to set up a health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA) or health reimbursement arrangement (HRA) through MetLife to help you cover your out-of-pocket health care expenses.^[18]

MetLife Discounts

MetLife’s pet insurance website advertises employer benefit and affinity group discounts of up to 10% depending on the type of company or organization you are a part of. Discounts are also available for military personnel, veterans, first responders, health care workers, animal care workers and anyone who purchases a policy online.^[19]

While MetLife doesn’t advertise discount opportunities for any of its other coverage types online, you may still want to consider speaking to someone in your HR department at work to see if you are eligible for any discounts on your insurance premiums.