Blue Cross Blue Shield leads YouGov’s 2026 U.S. health insurance rankings, with 19% of U.S. adults saying they would consider the brand when next in the market to acquire a new insurance policy, according to new YouGov BrandIndex data.
UnitedHealthcare ranks second at 14%, followed by Humana at 10%, Aetna at 10% and Cigna at 8%.
The rankings draw on YouGov BrandIndex data collected from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026, and examine Consideration as well as perceptions of Value and Quality among leading health insurance brands.
Key findings:
- Blue Cross Blue Shield leads on Consideration at 19%, followed by UnitedHealthcare (14%), Humana (10%), Aetna (10%) and Cigna (8%).
- Kaiser Permanente records the largest year-over-year gain in Consideration, rising 1.1 percentage points, followed by UnitedHealthcare with a 1.0-point increase.
- AARP Medicare Plans from UnitedHealthcare records the largest decline, falling 1.4 percentage points year over year.
- Blue Cross Blue Shield also leads on Value, with a net score of 8.3, ahead of Humana (3.2) and AARP Medicare Plans from UnitedHealthcare (3.1).
- Blue Cross Blue Shield posts the highest Quality score at 22.5, while Aetna and Humana each record a Quality score of 9.7 when rounded.
- UnitedHealthcare ranks second in Consideration but records the lowest Value score among the brands measured, at -0.8.
“Health insurance is different from many consumer categories because people do not always have complete freedom to choose their provider,” said Christopher Wilkes, senior director at YouGov. “Even so, brand perceptions matter, and Blue Cross Blue Shield stands out by leading on Consideration, Value and Quality, while Kaiser Permanente and UnitedHealthcare recorded the strongest gains in consideration over the past year.”
Explore the full rankings here.
Methodology
This analysis draws on YouGov BrandIndex data collected among U.S. adults from October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026.
The year-over-year comparison uses October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025, and October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026.
The Consideration, Value and Quality analyses cover U.S. adults. The current-period minimum sample size is more than 25,120, while the previous-period Consideration comparison has a minimum sample size of more than 25,440.
Consideration is reported as the percentage of respondents who would consider a brand when next in the market to acquire a new insurance policy. Value and Quality are reported as net scores based on positive and negative brand perceptions.
Consideration figures in this release are rounded to the nearest whole percentage point, while Value and Quality scores and year-over-year changes are shown to one decimal place. Year-over-year changes are calculated using the underlying unrounded figures.
Year-over-year changes describe movement between the two periods and should not be interpreted as claims of statistical significance.
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