Ameritas is the dental carrier most people have never heard of and a surprising number are already covered by. It has sold dental insurance since 1959, says it covers more than 12.9 million people for dental and vision, and it does two separate jobs in this market: it sells its own plans directly, and it rents its network and its underwriting paper to other brands.
That second job is why this page matters even if you were not shopping for Ameritas. This guide covers the three individual Ameritas dental plans sold as of September 2026, what they pay, what they cost, and how to tell whether the dental plan you already have is really an Ameritas plan wearing a different name.
Ameritas Is Two Companies at Once
Start with the ownership map, because it explains a lot of confusion.
As a direct seller, Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. of Lincoln, Nebraska sells three individual plans under the PrimeStar name through myplan.ameritas.com. In New York the underwriter is a separate entity, Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. of New York.
As a network, the Ameritas Dental Network (branded Classic PPO) is one of the largest in the country, at roughly 150,000 providers, 104,000 locations and 734,000 access points, with network dentists agreeing to charge 25% to 50% below their regular rates. Ameritas says 98% of providers stay with it year over year, and the network reaches into Mexico as well as the United States. It is not available in Rhode Island, and there are gaps in Montana and two Pennsylvania counties.
As paper for other brands, two examples make the point. Spirit Dental is a retail brand distributed by Direct Benefits, an Alera Group company, and every page of spiritdental.com carries the line “Underwritten by Ameritas Life Insurance Corp.” Separately, Physicians Mutual underwrites its own dental policies but states in its covered-procedures document that customers get their discounts through the Ameritas Classic PPO Network. So one company can be your insurer, your network, or both, and the answer differs by brand.
On the vision side, Ameritas does the same thing in reverse: its PrimeStar vision plans let you pick between the Select network (which is EyeMed) and the Choice network (which is VSP). It does not run a vision network of its own.
The Three Ameritas Dental Plans, Compared
These come from the current Ameritas individual brochure, form GR 8228-MAC 6-25, with an effective date of August 26, 2025. All figures are in-network unless noted.
| Feature | PrimeStar Care Lite | PrimeStar Care Boost | PrimeStar Care Complete |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual maximum, day one | $750 | $1,000 | $2,000 |
| Annual maximum, after year one | $1,500 | $2,500 | $3,500 |
| Deductible (preventive / basic and major) | $0 / $50 | $0 / $50 | $0 / $50 |
| Preventive coverage | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Basic, day one then after year one | 50% then 80% | 65% then 80% | 80% then 90% |
| Major, day one then after year one | 10% then 20% | 20% then 50% | 20% then 50% |
| Implants | No benefit | $500 day one, $1,000 year 2+ | $1,000 day one, $1,500 year 2+ |
| Child orthodontia | No benefit | 15% then 50%, $1,000 lifetime | No benefit |
| Hearing aid benefit per ear | No benefit | No benefit | $200 day one, up to $400 |
Two features do real work here. Preventive Plus means covered preventive procedures are not deducted from the annual maximum, so the whole maximum stays available for basic and major work. And the increasing maximum design means the plan you buy in year one is not the plan you own in year two, which is the single most important thing to understand before comparing an Ameritas quote to anyone else’s.
The plans are available in 29 jurisdictions including Washington DC as listed in that brochure, with Lite excluded from Arkansas, Kansas, North Carolina and Oklahoma, Boost excluded from Arkansas, and the whole piece not for use in New Mexico. Other states get different plan sets, which is why broker comparison tables for Illinois or Texas will not match the brochure exactly.
What Ameritas Dental Plans Cost
Ameritas does not publish a rate. Its consumer site returns nothing readable without a ZIP code, its producer page says only that rates are based on location instead of age, and the brochure carries no premiums at all. That is the norm in this market rather than the exception, but it means any Ameritas price you see comes from a distributor, not the carrier.
Two distributor sources give you a range as of 2026. Illinois Health Agents publishes a PrimeStar comparison with monthly rates of $48.38 for Lite, $59.33 for Boost and $65.38 for Complete, noting the rates correspond to after-year-one benefits. A Texas agency lists roughly $29 to $65 a month for a single adult. Treat both as illustrations of the spread, not as your quote. Worth noting: the Illinois table also shows benefit percentages that disagree with the Ameritas brochure, listing preventive coverage at 50% on Lite and major at 50% on all three plans. When a broker table and the carrier’s own brochure disagree, take the brochure.
There is a cleaner comparison available. The same Ameritas underwriting, on the same Ameritas network, is sold under the Spirit brand at published starting rates of $16.09 to $32.75 a month in Florida. Those plans are structured differently, with a $100 lifetime deductible and a longer three-year ramp, but they tell you what Ameritas-backed individual dental sells for at the low end.
The one price Ameritas does not have is a federal one. OPM’s 2026 dental carrier list runs to eleven plans: Aetna Dental, Blue Cross Blue Shield FEP Dental, Delta Dental’s Federal Employees Dental Program, Dominion National, EmblemHealth Dental, GEHA Connection Dental Federal, Humana Dental, The MetLife Federal Dental Plan, Triple-S Salud, United Concordia Dental and UnitedHealthcare Dental Plan. Ameritas is absent, so unlike Aetna and UnitedHealthcare there is no OPM-published exact rate to check a retail quote against. If you or a household member is a federal employee, read the FEDVIP guide before buying any individual dental plan.
Do the Arithmetic on Year One
Take PrimeStar Care Boost at the Illinois broker rate of $59.33 a month, which is $712 a year, plus the $50 deductible on basic and major services. Call the year-one cost $762.
Preventive is 100% and does not count against the maximum, so cleanings and exams are covered either way. Major services in year one pay 20%. To get $762 back at 20% coinsurance, you would need about $3,800 of major dental work in your first twelve months, and the plan would still stop at its $1,000 first-year maximum long before that. In year one this plan cannot break even on major care by design.
Year two changes the arithmetic completely. Major goes to 50% and the maximum rises to $2,500, so the break-even drops to roughly $1,500 of major work, a level a single crown and root canal sequence can reach on its own. The plan is built to reward staying, exactly like the Spirit design.
This is why the honest test is not “is Ameritas cheap” but “will I still be here in year two.” If the answer is no, price what a crown costs without insurance, compare it to a dental savings plan, and check the general market in what dental insurance costs before enrolling.
Dental Rewards Still Exists, but Probably Not for You
Ameritas Dental Rewards is real and current. Ameritas describes it as a plan-design feature where members who visit a dentist each year and stay below a benefit threshold carry over part of the unused annual maximum into the next year, with a PPO Bonus adding more for using a network dentist.
The catch is that it is an employer plan-design option, described on the industry-professional side of the site as something a broker adds to a client’s group plan. The individual PrimeStar Care plans do not carry it. They carry Preventive Plus and the increasing maximum instead. If you have Dental Rewards, you almost certainly got it through work.
Who These Plans Fit
Care Complete makes sense for someone older with real dental work ahead, because it starts at 80% on basic and adds the hearing benefit, and because location-based rather than age-based rating means you are not penalized for being 68. Care Boost is the family plan, and the only one of the three with child orthodontia. Care Lite is close to a preventive-only plan with a small cushion, since major care pays 10% in year one.
None of the three is a good answer to an urgent, expensive problem. A $750 first-year maximum on Lite does not touch an implant, and $1,000 of ortho lifetime is a fraction of what braces cost. If cash is the constraint, free and sliding-scale dental clinics and dental grant programs belong on the list before a premium does.
The Bottom Line
Ameritas publishes an unusually clear benefit schedule and an unusually invisible price. Read the brochure, note which column applies in year one, and only then get a quote.
Then do the network check, which is the same question no matter whose logo is on the card: ask your dentist whether they participate in the Ameritas Classic PPO network. If the answer is yes, the Spirit version, the PrimeStar version and any other Ameritas-backed plan all send you to the same chair, and the choice comes down to the deductible structure and how long you plan to stay. Cleanings are covered at 100% on all three tiers, so also price a routine cleaning as cash to know what the premium is really buying.