Health Insurance: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Who led the Health Insurance benchmark in October 2026, and by how much?
• Which brands moved beyond normal variation over the series?
• How did the leaderboard shift between July and October 2026?

Blue Cross Blue Shield led the Health Insurance benchmark in October 2026 with valid recommendation coverage of 65.4%, a 9.9 percentage point lead over second-place Kaiser Permanente, which recorded 55.5% coverage in October 2026. Blue Cross Blue Shield held the top position in each of the four months of the series.

The month was mixed. The largest coverage increase was UnitedHealthcare Vision, which rose to 46.3% in October 2026 from 0.0% in July 2026. The largest coverage decline was UnitedHealthcare, which fell to 0.0% in October 2026 from 53.9% in July 2026. Three brands moved beyond normal variation to the downside across the series: Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare. Seven brands moved beyond normal variation to the upside: Aetna Vision Preferred, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Elevance Health, Humana Vision, Molina Healthcare, Oscar Health, and UnitedHealthcare Vision.

Across the full series, Humana and UnitedHealthcare each declined in each of the three months since July 2026, and Aetna declined in each of the two months of its declining run. Ambetter (Centene), Cigna, and Kaiser Permanente were classified as stable.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 488 qualified observations in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the six canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. Both months recorded breadth of six. August 2026 (590 qualified observations) and September 2026 (553 qualified observations) sit between the baseline and current months.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Health Insurance

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many raw observations were filtered out, and what was the final qualified denominator in October 2026?
• Which research stages narrow the benchmark dataset from source observations to qualified benchmark observations?

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. Link AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which Health Insurance brands had the highest valid recommendation coverage in October 2026?
• How do presence rate, valid recommendation coverage, top-three rate, and rank-one rate differ across the leading brands?
• Which brand had the highest rank-one rate despite not leading on coverage?

This table is the primary current-month benchmark view, sorted by valid recommendation coverage.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned at all.
• Valid recommendation coverage is the share of qualified observations where the brand receives a genuine, usable recommendation.
• Top-three rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand appears among the top three recommendations.
• Rank-one rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is the first recommendation.
• Net sentiment is the balance of positive over negative mentions among qualified observations, from 0 (all negative) to 1 (all positive).

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands recorded the largest coverage gains since July 2026, and which recorded the largest declines?
• Why do the July 2026 figures for Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare show 0.0%?
• How did the three vision-specific brand variants change the movement picture?

Note: the tracked set for October 2026 includes vision-specific brand variants for Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare that were not measured under those names in July 2026. Where a brand was not measured under its current name at baseline, its July 2026 figure is shown as 0.0% for reference only and is not a movement result.

Largest Increase: UnitedHealthcare Vision

UnitedHealthcare Vision recorded 46.3% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, in its first month of measurement under this name. The brand was not measured under this name in July 2026, so its coverage rose 46.3 percentage points against that reference. Presence was 80.3% in October 2026, alongside a top-three rate of 29.7% and a rank-one rate of 11.7%.

Largest Decline: UnitedHealthcare

UnitedHealthcare recorded 0.0% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, down 53.9 percentage points from 53.9% in July 2026. The brand declined in each of the three months since July 2026. It was not measured under this name in October 2026. In July 2026 its presence was 96.3%, its top-three rate was 29.6%, and its rank-one rate was 7.2%.

Category Leader: Blue Cross Blue Shield

Blue Cross Blue Shield remained the coverage leader in October 2026 at 65.4%, up 7.6 percentage points from 57.8% in July 2026. The brand held the top position in each of the four months of the series. Its top-three rate rose to 50.8% in October 2026 from 41.6% in July 2026, while its rank-one rate eased to 10.0% in October 2026 from 12.3% in July 2026. Its presence rate rose to 93.7% in October 2026 from 87.5% in July 2026.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand led in rank-one placement in October 2026, and how far ahead was it?
• How can coverage be close while first-position rates differ sharply?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Among the leading brands, placement patterns differ meaningfully.

Kaiser Permanente led the field in rank-one placement at 40.0% in October 2026, well above Blue Cross Blue Shield's 10.0% and UnitedHealthcare Vision's 11.7%. When coverage is close, first-position rates can still differ sharply, as the comparison between Blue Cross Blue Shield and Kaiser Permanente shows.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent class did all qualified observations fall into in October 2026?
• What buyer-intent classes does the current public series not yet measure?

In October 2026, all qualified observations fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

The current public series measures Brand Recommendation discovery and does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What information does each prompt-level observation retain in the benchmark?
• Does source presence prove that a cited source caused a recommendation?

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not automatically proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure market share, attributable sales, every possible AI response, organic-search ranking, social mention volume, or private and sponsored channels. A metric movement alone does not establish causality.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most across AI platform responses in this measurement period?
• How concentrated are citations among the top 10 domains?
• Does any tracked brand's own domain appear among the top cited sources?

Across all AI platform responses in this measurement period, 6,285 citations were observed across 1,129 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed: the top 10 domains together account for a small share of the 6,285 total citations, and no single domain exceeds 4% share. No tracked brand's own domain appears in the top 10. Insurance comparison and personal-finance publishers, including ValuePenguin, LendingTree, MoneyGeek, NerdWallet, and Investopedia, are the most prominent source type in the list, alongside general-interest and official-platform domains.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how AI search and assistant surfaces discover, recommend, and describe brands across industries. Each monthly update adds to the same public benchmark record.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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