Benchmark Summary

Ethos led the Life Insurance Companies AI Market Discovery Index in August 2026 with a valid recommendation coverage of 67.3%, ahead of Ladder at 58.7% by 8.6 percentage points. The benchmark recorded significant movement this month, with three brands showing changes beyond normal month-to-month variation.

Ladder posted the largest coverage decline, falling from 69.5% in July 2026 to 58.7% in August 2026. Ladder's 10.8-point drop was the largest coverage decline of the month. Ethos declined from 73.8% in July 2026 to 67.3% in August 2026, and Bestow declined from 17.2% in July 2026 to 11.0% in August 2026. No brand posted a significant increase in coverage this month.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 392 qualified observations in August 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI/search surface families with at least one qualified observation in the month. The six canonical families are ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.

Research Scope and Qualification

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design. The table below shows how observations moved through the qualification funnel.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. See the AI Market Discovery Methodology for full details.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio’s analysis of how AI search is recommending Life Insurance Brands.

Current Brand Standings

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

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the AI response.
• Valid recommendation coverage: share of qualified observations where the brand appears as a valid recommendation, including a mention in context that meets the recommendation criteria.
• Top-three rate: share of qualified observations where the brand appears among the top three recommended options.
• Rank-one rate: share of qualified observations where the brand is the first-ranked recommendation.
• Net sentiment: positive sentiment share minus negative sentiment share across mentions.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Everyday Life Insurance

Everyday Life Insurance recorded a 1.0% presence rate in August 2026, but valid recommendation coverage, top-three rate, and rank-one rate were all 0.0%. Its valid recommendation coverage moved from 0.2% in July 2026 to 0.0% in August 2026, a change within normal month-to-month variation on a base of 0 qualified recommendations in the current month.
Ethos records 67.3% valid recommendation coverage, while Everyday Life Insurance stands at 0.0%. The more important issue is that Everyday Life Insurance does appear in a small share of qualified AI responses, but that visibility is currently not converting into valid recommendation coverage in the benchmark. The current benchmark does not establish the cause of this gap, making the mechanism behind the result the immediate question to investigate.

Highest-priority diagnostic: Which prompts, AI/search surfaces, and evidence conditions account for Everyday Life Insurance's limited presence, and what distinguishes those appearances from the observations in which stronger peers become valid recommendations?

Largest Decline: Ladder

Ladder recorded the largest coverage decline of the month, moving from 69.5% in July 2026 to 58.7% in August 2026, a drop of 10.8 percentage points. This decline moved beyond normal month-to-month variation and was accompanied by a presence-rate decline from 73.8% in July 2026 to 64.8% in August 2026.

Significant Decliners: Ethos and Bestow

Ethos declined from 73.8% in July 2026 to 67.3% in August 2026, a drop of 6.5 percentage points beyond normal variation. Despite the coverage decline, Ethos remained the category leader and improved its rank-one rate from 15.3% in July 2026 to 27.3% in August 2026.

Bestow declined from 17.2% in July 2026 to 11.0% in August 2026, a drop of 6.2 percentage points beyond normal variation. Its presence rate fell from 18.4% in July 2026 to 12.5% in August 2026.

Category Leader: Ethos

Ethos led the category with 67.3% valid recommendation coverage in August 2026. The gap to Ladder at 58.7% was 8.6 percentage points.

Stable and Small-Observation Rows

Policygenius moved from 58.2% in July 2026 to 55.9% in August 2026, a change of 2.3 points within normal month-to-month variation. Quotacy moved from 1.7% in July 2026 to 2.0% in August 2026, within normal variation on a small base of 8 qualified recommendations.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. Placement rates reveal whether a brand appears at the top of the list or deeper in the response.

Ethos and Ladder had similar top-three rates in August 2026, but Ethos held a much higher first-position rate, at 27.3% versus 14.3%. Similar coverage levels can still hide different first-position rates.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

The qualified observations in August 2026 fell into the Brand Recommendation class.

All observations sit in one class: the current public series measures brand recommendation discovery only and does not yet contain qualified observations in the pricing and 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

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 or sales attribution
• Every possible AI response or AI surface
• Organic-search ranking positions
• Social media mention volume
• Private or sponsored channels such as paid placements and internal tools
• Causality from a metric movement alone

The current dataset cannot answer pricing, value, or head-to-head comparison questions.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Market Discovery Index is a neutral industry benchmark that tracks how AI search and chat surfaces discover, mention, and recommend brands. It measures presence, recommendation coverage, placement, and sentiment across six canonical AI surface families. New measurements are added to the same evergreen report each month.

Research links:

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

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