How to use the Ratings page in Trail Research

The Ratings page is the core comparison page in Trail Research. It helps you compare on-sale insurance products benefit by benefit, see how products stack up against each other, and review historical ratings data for a range of product types.

Trail Research is currently in beta. That means the tool is live and ready to use, but we are still actively improving it. During this period, we recommend using Trail Research alongside your existing research process while you get familiar with the tool and help us identify areas for improvement. Your feedback will play an important role in shaping future updates and functionality.

The Ratings page is where Trail Research compares on-sale products against each other based on their benefits. Each product is assessed across a wide range of benefit areas, giving you a structured way to review the market and understand where products differ.

This page is especially useful when you want to:

Once you are inside Trail Research, by default you will land on the Ratings page. Otherwise, navigate to the page by clicking the Ratings button at the top of the screen.

Click on the product category at the top of the page to switch between the different insurance product types. Each general category has a number of subcategories to help narrow down the visible products.

After selecting a subcategory from the list, the Ratings page will update to show the products and benefits relevant to that category.

The Ratings page includes three different ways to view the same underlying ratings data:

Score View

This is the most detailed view. It shows the numerical score for each benefit and each product, making it the best option when you want to understand the differences more closely. You can also see how each product benefit scores against the current strongest market offering for that benefit.

Heatmap View

This presents the same ratings information in a more visual format. It can be useful when you want a simpler at-a-glance comparison across products, whilst still retaining the main distinctions.

Coverage View

This is the most simplified view. It displays whether a product includes a certain benefit or not, but does not show where there may be variance between products.

If you want to understand how a particular score was reached, hover over any benefit name or value in the ratings table from the Score view, and click the About This Benefit or Details button.

This will bring up a scoring table that gives you a breakdown of what level of cover the given score corresponds to.

If you want to see how products were rated at an earlier point in time, click the Current Scores button in the top left to open a date picker and select a new date.

Changing the date here will show the ratings data that was current at that time, including any products or insurance providers that are no longer on sale. This can be useful when reviewing legacy products or understanding what the market looked like when a client originally took out cover.

If you need to compare two specific products side-by-side, especially older or off-sale products, the Compare page is best for this task.

How are the scores calculated?

Our independent actuary team calculates the benefit scores by comparing each benefit against the strongest current market offering. Products may receive a penalty for conditions such as lower benefit payments or more restrictive wording.

In the Heatmap view, labels such as “Best”, “Great”, or “Basic” are based on how close a product’s score is to the current market maximum (Current Max.).

Where does the historic product information come from?

Trail acquired the Strategy tool, created by Graeme Lindsay, in 2024, which gave us access to up to 20 years of historical product and ratings data. This historical data is visible via the ratings page or when using the Compare tool.

How often are ratings reviewed?

Our ratings are reviewed on a regular basis alongside discussion with product providers and advisers to ensure the scores accurately reflect the market. We also review the ratings anytime a product enhancement is published by a product provider based on the new policy wording documents.

There is a product missing / I have feedback about a particular rating.

If a product is not rated that you would like to see, or you have feedback about a particular rating, we encourage you to submit this as feedback using the Submit feedback button at the top right of Trail Research.

We are actively working on adding missing products to Trail Research so check back regularly in the tool for updates.

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If you have a bug to report or need urgent help, contact our Support Team through Intercom or by emailing support@gettrail.com. For suggestions or feature requests, use the Submit Feedback button at the top of the page inside Trail Research.