If you’ve ever seen the terms Total Benefits Score or Total Weighted IQ Rating on Quotemonster and wondered what they meant, you’re not the only one!
Here is some information on numbers and terminology which we hope will provide you with a better understanding of our Research.
For a product (e.g., Life Cover), the Total Benefits Score (Image 1) is the sum total of every benefit being rated. You can view the entire list of benefits by ordering your Research Alphabetically.
Image 1:
The Percentage Rating (Image 1) converts to a Star rating for each insurer’s products and is also provided in this screen.
In the example above (Image 1), the highest total benefits score is 106.44, which belongs to AIA, therefore this company has a Percentage Rating of 100% and is a 5-star product. Next, the other products are benchmarked against this as below:
- Chubb Life: 104.76/106.44 = 98%
- Fidelity: 104.50/106.44 = 98%
- Partners Life: 106.02/106.44 = 99.6, rounds to 100%
The Percentage Rating is then converted into a Star Rating according to our table below:
| Percentage (%) | Star Rating Band |
| 98.0 – 100.0 | 5 stars |
| 96.0 – 97.9 | 4.5 stars |
| 92.0 -95.9 | 4 stars |
| 84.0 – 91.9 | 3.5 stars |
| 68.0 – 83.9 | 3 stars |
| 36.0 – 67.9 | 2.5 stars |
| 20.0 – 35.9 | 2 stars |
| 12.0 – 19.9 | 1.5 stars |
| 8.0 – 11.9 | 1 star |
| 6.0 – 7.9 | .5 star |
| < 6.0 | 0 stars |
When ordering by Importance, we aim to only present the high scoring benefits for the selected product, and all others are combined and displayed in the Secondary Benefits Score (Image 2).
Again, to see every benefit, simply order Alphabetically.
Image 2:
Researchmonster subscribers have the additional Research tab, which defaults to the Package Score and includes the term Total Weighted IQ Rating.
IQ = Insurance Quality and we highly recommend referring to our Why Methodology Matters infographic for detailed information and you can click here to download this.
To get the Total Weighted IQ Rating, the Total Benefits Score for each product is multiplied by the Product Line Weighting Factor*
*In reality, the distribution of claims differs based on age, gender, and other factors. Our Product Line Weighting Factor aims to model the relative weight of a claim and as we know, models aren’t an exact science.
In our example below (Image 3), Chubb Life: 104.76 (Total Benefits Score) x 0.1 (Product Line Weighting Factor) = 10.48 (package score for Life cover).
This is completed for each benefit and totalled to form the Total Weighted IQ Rating (Image 3).
Life 10.48 + Trauma 31.85 + Health 10.42 + Mortgage 14.37 + TPD 14.97 + Income 19.21 = 101.30
Star ratings (aka Percentage Rating) for the package is also provided in this screen.
In this set, the highest score is 102.85, which belongs to Partners Life, therefore this company has a Percentage Rating of 100% and offers a 5-star package suite. Next, the other products are benchmarked against this as below:
AIA: 101.66/102.85 = 99%, Chubb Life: 101.30/102.85 = 98%, Fidelity: 100.01/102.85 = 97%
Image 3:
We hope this provides some insight into how research works and if there is a specific topic you would like us to share on, please send us an email on [email protected]