ou've pored over dozens of life insurance policies and settled on three policies from three different companies as your finalists. The companies all have reassuring names like "American," "Safety," or "National."

Before you take the cheapest route, check out each company's financial ratings. Insurance ratings essentially are letter grades assigned to insurers based on the financial strength of those companies. The ratings are important because they can make a difference in whether you can be assured that you'll get paid if you ever file a claim.

There are five large insurance rating services in America. Their ratings are just like grades in school, with A being the best, then B, and so on. But talk about grade inflation!

Virtually all of the companies get an "A" of one form or another, while any company with a B or lower shouldn't be considered. It makes more sense if you think of life insurance ratings as comparable to bond ratings, which usually hover in the A-B range.

So what do you do when you need to buy that life insurance policy? Try testing both the life insurance company and the agent:

The company:

The agent:

The bottom line: Once you've done your own research and you're familiar with the ratings the various services have given, how do you choose? If you're buying a permanent (cash value) policy or an annuity from the company, it should be rated by at least three of the five rating services and have one of the top three ratings by at least two of those services. No rating should be below that service's fifth-best score.

Many of the top-ranked companies have the best products anyway, so you're not sacrificing performance for security (an interesting change from the investment world, where more risk is supposed to equal a higher return).

Remember that life insurance is primarily a death benefit, not an investment vehicle. You want to be secure in knowing that when you or your heirs deserve the money, you'll get it.