As personal finance experts at Kiplinger, we often review products and services based on fees, interest rates, rewards, online tools and other concrete factors that we can evaluate from the outside. Using that information, we pass along recommendations to our readers, sharing our beliefs on which providers stand above the rest.

But as readers, you have valuable insights, too. Customers who use credit cards, banks, brokers, insurance companies and other financial entities have everyday experiences that we can't replicate when we make our judgments, and we want to tap your expertise. With that in mind, we are introducing the Kiplinger Readers' Choice Awards. 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.

More than 2,600 readers responded to our survey, and we're sharing the results here. 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. (For more, see the methodology on page 77.) 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 below.

Read on to see which financial providers our readers ranked as outstanding-and thank you to all of you who took our survey.

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