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The following standards for choosing a auto insurance company are recommended: Choose carriers with financial ratings from at least three of the major ratings services (e.g., A.M. Best, Moody's, Standard & Poor's, Fitch, and Weiss). While there are still unique product offerings that may be offered by some companies, the selection of an insurance company should follow standards of prudence and due diligence in an economic environment characterized by volatility and instability.

Term (during its initial guarantee period) is also backed by the carrier's financial stability, but sufficiency risk is shifted to the policy owner during the period beyond the initial guarantee in which death is more likely to occur. Whole Life and No Lapse/Secondary Guarantee Universal Life are backed by the carrier's financial stability. Universal Lite and Variable universal Lite policies shift the premium sufficiency risk to the policy owner; such policies represented roughly 50 percent of new sales in 2003.

Today's auto insurance companies have transformed both themselves and their products in an attempt to protect against a repeat of the last decade's financial dissonance. The fallout would continue through the decade with the last major insolvency occurring at Missouri's General American Life, which acquiesced in 1999 to voluntary rehabilitation and a merger with MetLife. In 1992 , The Equitable Life Assurance Company (the third largest U.S. insurer) agreed to demutualize and be acquired by the French insurer AXA rather than suffer a financial collapse. Several months later, Mutual Benefit (a top 10 U.S. insurer) was seized by New Jersey's Insurance Commissioner and also liquidated. In April 1991, Executive Life (13th largest U.S. insurer) was seized by California's Insurance Commissioner and liquidated. But the 10 year period from the late 1970s to the late 1980s that provoked such dramatic changes in product offerings also created significant financial instability in an industry that depended to a substantial degree on level interest rates.