Many people choose their insurance company simply based on the competitiveness of their life insurance quotes. While price is undeniably important, there is a host of other factors to weigh when making this vital decision. Here are the main points to keep in mind:

•  Financial Solidity - This is probably the most crucial factor in selecting a life insurance company. No matter how good a company's products, you need to be assured that your provider is financially secure enough to pay your claim(s). There is no guarantee for life insurance policyholders similar to that provided for bank accounts by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), so select a company that is likely to be financially sound for many years, by using ratings from independent rating agencies.

•  Product - Most companies offer a broad range of policies and features, so choose a company that offers the product(s) and features that meet your needs.

•  Customer Service - For many people life insurance is a complicated subject, so it helps to deal with a representative whom you can trust, who understands and is attentive to your needs, and with whom you can communicate easily.

•  Claims and Market Ethics - Your state insurance department can tell you if the insurance company you are considering doing business with had many consumer complaints about its service level relative to the number of policies it sold.

Similarly, it makes sense to do business with a company that has high ethical standards. Some life insurance companies subscribe to the principles and codes of conduct of the Insurance Marketplace Standards Association, a nonprofit organization that promotes ethical conduct in life insurance marketing.

The better a company's rating in these two vital areas, the better your chances of being treated fairly, efficiently, and courteously.

•  Premium and Cost - The premium is the amount you pay the company for the life insurance policy. Even for a given death benefit and type of insurance (e.g., term life), the premium can vary widely among companies, either because some companies' policies have features that others don ot or because some charge more than others for the same coverage. So the first step in comparing policies is to make sure you compare similar insurance plans, based on

•  Your age
•  The type of policy and policy features
•  The amount of insurance you are purchasing

Bear in mind, however, that the premium for the policy is not the same as the cost of the protection portion of the policy. One policy might have a higher premium but also offer more benefits (for example, it might pay policy dividends) than another. Or both might promise dividends, but in different amounts at different points in time. In each case, the higher-premium policy might have a lower cost of protection. How can you tell what a policy's cost is? Companies should tell you a policy's Net Payment Cost Index and its Surrender Cost Index. Use the Surrender Cost Index if you are thinking of keeping the insurance only for a specific period of time; use the Net Payment Cost Index if you expect to keep the policy indefinitely. Generally, the lower the cost index, the better.

One last important point to keep in mind when selecting a life insurance company:

•  Licensing - Not every group of insurance companies licensed to operate in each state. As a general rule, you should buy from a company licensed in your state, because then you can rely on your state insurance department to help if there is a problem. If the insurance company becomes insolvent, your state's life insurance guaranty fund will help only policyholders of companies it has licensed. To find out which companies are licensed in any state, contact that state's state insurance department.