2023 Kiplinger Readers' Choice Awards Results

Kiplinger Reader's Choice Awards 2023 banner

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Best Cash Back Credit Cards
Best Travel Rewards Credit Cards
Best Airline Credit Card Rewards Programs
Best National Banks
Best Internet Banks
Best Full-Service Brokers
Best Wealth Managers
Best Peer-To-Peer Payment Apps
Best Tax Software
Best Auto Insurance Companies

published 1 June 2023

We asked Kiplinger readers for their opinions about financial services companies, and boy, did they deliver. More than 2,600 readers responded to our survey, and you can benefit from their collective knowledge and experience as we’re sharing the results here.

Customers who use credit cards, banks, brokers, insurance companies, and other financial entities have everyday experiences that can help others make beneficial choices when pooled together and shared. Earlier this year, we conducted a survey, asking readers to rate several financial products and services based on such criteria as their experience with customer service representatives, how likely they are to recommend the providers to others, and how satisfied they are overall with the companies or services. Our awards recognize excellence in everything from credit cards, banks, and brokers to insurers, tax software, and financial apps.

For each category, we’ve listed an overall winner that earned the highest score. We’ve also highlighted other products and services that earned above-average scores for various criteria we asked readers to assess. And we offered survey respondents the option to leave comments about their experiences with the products and services they use. We didn’t receive comments for every financial provider, but for those that did garner reader remarks, we have shared some of the commentary.

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Kiplinger readers were invited to take the Readers’ Choice Awards survey on Kiplinger.com between February 28 and March 31, 2023. The survey asked respondents to choose the financial product or service that they most frequently use in several categories, including cash-back credit cards, travel rewards credit cards, airline credit card rewards programs, national banks, internet banks, full-service brokerage firms, wealth managers, peer-to-peer payment apps, tax software and auto insurers.

We asked readers to rate each provider they selected on a scale of one to 10 based on a few criteria. In many categories, readers rated the strength of customer service, how likely they would be to recommend the product or service to others, and how satisfied they are overall with the provider. In some categories, we included more-nuanced criteria. With wealth management firms, we asked respondents to rate the trustworthiness of a firm’s advisers and the quality of its financial advice. For peer-to-peer payment apps and tax software, respondents evaluated ease of use, and for auto insurance companies, readers judged the competitiveness of rates and strength of the claims experience.

We calculated an average (mean) score for each criterion with each provider. We also calculated an overall mean score for all providers for each criterion we asked readers to judge. We compared individual provider mean scores with the overall mean, and those that had a score higher than the overall mean won an “outstanding” accolade. In each category, providers are generally listed in descending order by the number of criteria for which they received the “outstanding” designation — so a product or company that is deemed “outstanding” in three areas, for example, is listed before a provider with one or two “outstanding” awards.

Lisa has been the editor of Kiplinger Personal Finance since June 2023. Previously, she spent more than a decade reporting and writing for the magazine on a variety of topics, including credit, banking and retirement. She has shared her expertise as a guest on the Today Show, CNN, Fox, NPR, Cheddar and many other media outlets around the nation. Lisa graduated from Ball State University and received the school’s “Graduate of the Last Decade” award in 2014. A military spouse, she has moved around the U.S. and currently lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband and two sons.