Insurance companies in Arizona: big carrier operations, no listed head offices

This page is for Arizonans checking an insurer or agency, people looking for insurance work in the state, and sellers deciding how to approach Arizona's insurers. It explains what's here using Census counts and official records. It doesn't recommend carriers.

Arizona insurance at a glance

County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 524 (Insurance Carriers and Related Activities), Arizona:

So 3,715 establishments have fewer than 20 employees, 232 have 20 to 99 and 123 have 100 or more. The count is of establishments with paid employees, not companies, and leaves out self-employed agents. Codes are NAICS 524 and subcodes, 2017 basis.

Where Arizona's insurance jobs are

The county file shows a quirk worth knowing. Maricopa County has 2,893 establishments and 55,696 employees and Pima County 526 and 5,142, but 133 establishments with 19,096 employees are coded "statewide" (county code 999) rather than to any county. Whatever those operations are, they're a quarter of Arizona's insurance employment, and county or metro figures leave them out.

By type, from our tabulation of the state file:

"Not reported" means the Census Bureau published the figure but flagged it as high-noise: its confidentiality noise changed the value by 5% or more. Two specialties stand out. Title insurance follows home sales, and Arizona has more title insurer establishments than all but four states. Third-party administration matters because NAICS 2022 explicitly places pharmacy benefit management in this code, so benefits administrators and pharmacy benefit operations count here, not under carriers.

Carriers average 59.1 employees per establishment and paid $85,790 on average; agencies and brokerages average 4.9 employees and paid $81,320.

Why there's no head-office list

Neither the data file nor EDGAR shows an SEC-listed insurer with an Arizona head office. The large employers here are operations of insurers headquartered in other states and private or mutual companies, and the Census Bureau doesn't publish employers' names. To see who the biggest groups are nationally, use the largest insurance companies in the US; to see which of them operate in Arizona, use the regulator's records below.

How to check an insurer or agent in Arizona

1. Confirm the regulator. Arizona Revised Statutes section 20-101 establishes the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions, "known as DIFI", under a director whose powers and duties are set out in section 20-142. Its website is difi.az.gov.
2. Look up the licence. Search the company or agent by name before you buy. A company licensed in Arizona can have a slightly different legal name from its brand, and groups often have several companies.
3. Read the complaint record. The NAIC's Consumer Insurance Search reports complaints, licences and financial health for each insurer, which lets you compare an Arizona-licensed company's record across states.
4. Ask the agent which company writes the policy. An independent agency in Arizona usually represents several carriers. The Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of Arizona, based in Phoenix, has a find-an-agent directory.

Working in Arizona insurance

With 123 establishments of 100 or more employees, Arizona has more large insurance sites than its head-office count suggests. Pay varies by place: Tucson's 526 establishments paid an average of $61,135, against $81,547 statewide.

Selling to Arizona insurers

Worked example: training for service centers

Illustrative example. The company and its numbers are invented; the counts come from the tables above.

Saguaro Skills (saguaroskills.example) runs licensing prep and onboarding courses for new claims and service staff.

1. List the sites: 123 establishments with 100 or more employees.
2. Do the arithmetic: reaching an HR or training lead at 60% gives 74 conversations. If 10% run a pilot cohort, that's 7; if 4 renew at $40,000 a year, that's $160,000.
3. Use the local network: the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry covers the state's large employers.

Finding the site leader for each operation is the slow part; Bebop researches each company in a list and suggests who to contact.

Subject: New-hire licensing at your Arizona site

Hi [first name],

Service and claims sites in Arizona tell us the expensive weeks are the ones between hiring someone and getting them licensed.

We run exam prep and onboarding for cohorts of 10 to 40, on site or online, and report pass rates back to you.

Would it help to compare your last cohort's time to licence with ours?

[Your name]

Next step: for the metro alone, see insurance companies in Phoenix.