Medicare Supplement Insurance: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand leads Medicare Supplement Insurance in valid recommendation coverage for October 2026?
• What explains the change in leader from July 2026 to October 2026?
• How much did the qualified benchmark shrink between July 2026 and October 2026?

UnitedHealthcare Vision leads Medicare Supplement Insurance with valid recommendation coverage of 82.8% in October 2026. The gap to the next closest brand is 5.6 points, with Mutual of Omaha at 77.2% in the same month. Mutual of Omaha also recorded the largest coverage increase among continuously tracked brands, rising 32.6 points from 44.6% in July 2026 to 77.2% in October 2026. UnitedHealthcare posted the largest coverage decline in the series, falling 66.3 points from 66.3% in July 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026, with its October responses now captured separately under UnitedHealthcare Vision.

October 2026 was a quiet month at the category level, with no brand moving beyond normal month-to-month variation from September 2026 to October 2026. The month caps a series in which the composition of tracked entities changed once, at the September 2026 boundary. The general-carrier set that led in July 2026 (UnitedHealthcare at 66.3%, Humana at 51.6%, Aetna at 45.5%) was replaced by vision-specific product entities beginning in September 2026, and the October 2026 standings are broadly flat against that new set: UnitedHealthcare Vision 82.8% (down 0.1 points from 82.9%), Aetna Vision Preferred 32.2% (up 1.8 points from 30.4%), Humana Vision 35.7% (up 1.3 points from 34.4%), and Anthem Blue View Vision 11.0% (up 3.0 points from 8.0%). Mutual of Omaha and State Farm, the two continuously tracked brands that rose in each month from July 2026 through September 2026, both edged down slightly in October 2026 while remaining well above their July 2026 baselines.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 255 qualified observations in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI surface families with at least one qualified observation: ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. August 2026 and September 2026 both carried the same breadth of six.

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

Research Scope and Qualification

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 Medicare Supplement brands qualified for the October 2026 standings, and where did each rank?
• How do presence rate and valid recommendation coverage differ across the tracked brands?
• How far apart are the leading brands on top-three and rank-one rate?

Two brands tracked through August 2026 do not appear in the October 2026 standings: Aetna and Anthem (Elevance Health) both registered 0.0% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, as did Humana and UnitedHealthcare.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned in the AI answer.
• Valid recommendation coverage: Share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a valid recommendation shortlist.
• Top-three rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the top three recommended options.
• Rank-one rate: Share of qualified observations where the brand is the single first recommendation.
• Net sentiment: Balance of positive minus negative mentions across qualified observations.

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

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands recorded the largest recommendation coverage increases since July 2026?
• What accounts for the steep decline in UnitedHealthcare's coverage by October 2026?

The four tracking-register changes at the September 2026 boundary (Aetna, Anthem, Humana, UnitedHealthcare) continue to hold in October 2026. Against the immediately prior month, Cigna rose 3.6 points and Anthem Blue View Vision rose 3.0 points, both within normal month-to-month variation; UnitedHealthcare Vision, State Farm, Mutual of Omaha, and Colonial Penn each edged down by less than 1.2 points.

Largest Increase: Mutual of Omaha

Mutual of Omaha rose 32.6 points from 44.6% in July 2026 to 77.2% in October 2026, the largest cumulative increase among continuously tracked brands. Its top-three rate moved from 22.9% in July 2026 to 54.5% in October 2026, and its rank-one rate rose from 2.2% to 11.4% over the same span. Coverage eased slightly from September 2026 to October 2026 (77.9% to 77.2%), a normal month-to-month variation within an otherwise rising trend.

Largest Decline: UnitedHealthcare

UnitedHealthcare fell from 66.3% in July 2026 to 0.0% in October 2026, a decline of 66.3 points and the largest cumulative movement in the series. Its October responses were captured under UnitedHealthcare Vision, which posted 82.8% coverage, 72.2% top-three rate, and 40.8% rank-one rate in the same month. Humana (down 51.6 points) and Aetna (down 45.5 points) show the same register pattern, with their October responses captured under Humana Vision and Aetna Vision Preferred respectively.

Category Leader: UnitedHealthcare Vision

UnitedHealthcare Vision holds the highest valid recommendation coverage at 82.8% in October 2026, with a rank-one rate of 40.8% and a top-three rate of 72.2%. Its coverage has held between 82.8% and 82.9% across both months in which it has appeared.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Why can similar coverage levels still produce different rank-one rates for Medicare Supplement brands?
• Which brand pairs the highest coverage with the highest rank-one rate in October 2026?

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

Close coverage can still hide different first-position rates. Mutual of Omaha and State Farm post different coverage levels, at 77.2% and 58.4% respectively, yet their rank-one rates differ further at 11.4% versus 22.0%, and UnitedHealthcare Vision pairs the highest coverage with the highest rank-one rate.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent class made up all qualified observations in both July and October 2026?
• Does the benchmark currently measure pricing or multi-brand comparison questions for Medicare Supplement Insurance?

All qualified observations in both months fell into the Brand Recommendation class, where the AI answer names specific carriers rather than comparing plans or pricing.

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

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand led each month from July 2026 through October 2026, and what was its coverage?
• What was the largest coverage movement in each month of the series?

The series changed leaders only once, at the September 2026 register boundary, and October 2026 held that leader at a nearly identical coverage level.

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, 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, private/sponsored channels, or causality from a metric movement alone.

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains were cited most often across AI platform responses in October 2026?
• Do any Medicare Supplement brand domains appear among the most-cited sources, and how concentrated are the citations?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, the benchmark recorded 6,670 citations drawn from 1,209 unique domains.

Citations are broadly distributed rather than concentrated: the top 10 domains together account for roughly 28.5% of all citations, and the remaining 1,199 unique domains make up the balance. No tracked brand's own domain appears in the top 10. Financial-product review and comparison sites dominate the list (nerdwallet.com, moneygeek.com), followed by general-interest publishers (forbes.com, healthline.com), Medicare-specific educational and comparison properties (medicareguide.com, thebig65.com, boomerbenefits.com), the federal government's medicare.gov, and two general platforms (google.com, youtube.com) that likely reflect search or video attribution rather than editorial content.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how often brands appear in AI-generated recommendations across the six canonical AI surface families. It is a neutral industry benchmark, not an endorsement of any brand.

• 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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