The best auto
& home insurance company reviews on the Web!
How I
help you find low auto & home insurance rates with good
insurance companies
My philosophy is simple: review your coverage each
year, by getting price quotes from all the leading insurance companies,
so you know what coverage options are available, avoid gaps in
coverage, and save hundreds of dollars, by finding companies with the
best combination of service, coverage, and price for you. Yes, you
really can save $100s on your car & home insurance, as long as
you diligently shop your insurance with enough companies. By shopping
each year, you get other company's & agent's opinions on your
coverage, and make sure you don't over-pay for your coverage.
However, many people don't know all the auto & home insurance companies
available in their state, or know where to find reliable, unbiased information, to
help them decide which company is best for them. My site helps you like no other
site, to find the best insurance companies, coverage, & rates for you.
How my site helps you
unlike other insurance websites
I use my experience & knowledge as a former insurance agent, to
tell you about ALL the leading insurance companies, not just the few
companies paying website owners a fee for your information. Some
insurance companies do charge much less for the same coverage as other
companies. But which companies have the best rates for you, depend on
your unique combination of characteristics, such as your age, marital status, zip code,
occupation, credit, claims history & many other factors.
The companies with the best price for you will also change over time.
Many people pay too much for their coverage, and don't have the
coverage they need when they have a claim, because they haven't shopped
and reviewed their coverage in years. You can't find the best price and
coverage, unless you know about all the insurance companies, and which
companies are a good choice for you.
For example, if you are an honorably discharged veteran, you should
consider USAA. If you are a Costco member, you want to consider
Ameriprise. If you or a family member have tickets and accidents, you
need to know which companies are willing to insure you, and insure you at a
reasonable price, as well as provide acceptable customer service. My
site and blog tell you what you need to know about auto & home insurance
companies, to find the best one for you.
Why most auto & home insurance reviews are not
helpful
I've read many auto & home insurance company reviews on the
Web, and I haven't found any reviews of particular use to consumers.
Insurance company reviews on the Internet usually fall into two
categories: 1. customer reviews or 2. reviews by so-called experts.
1. Customer reviews are most often customer complaints. Not too many
people, happy with their auto or home insurance, take the time to write about
it on the Internet. What positive reviews you find can easily be fake reviews, or they
receive a financial benefit for promoting the company.
All insurance companies have some unhappy customers, so it's impossible
to know if the complaints of some customers, are representative of the
experience of most customers. If one company has 200 negative customer
reviews, another company has 100 negative customer reviews, and both
companies have a million customers each, the number of reviews are too
small to determine a trend in the experience of those million
customers. You don't know the opinions of enough customers to tell if
one company is better than the other.
2. Reviews by experts, usually on websites devoted to insurance, rarely
have useful information. Eliminating the many reviews basically saying
nothing, the remaining ones are often vague or inaccurate, talking about
one company
having better coverage options, or another company having less
discounts. Real coverage differences are never clearly defined.
Customers should choose an insurance company based on coverage, price
& customer service, and not the number of discounts the company
offers. Getting a larger number of discounts doesn't help, if the
price is still higher than other companies giving you less discounts.
It's also a mystery how some reviews are coming up with their ratings
for a company's claims & customer service.
Many insurance company reviews by experts show little more than the
company's financial strength ratings from AM Best, Moody's Investor
Service, Fitch, Inc., Standard & Poor, & Duff
& Phelps. However, these rating agencies assess only the
financially strength of an insurance company, measuring the company's
ability to pay claims, remain solvent, and stay in business. The rating
assigned does not indicate the quality of customer service, or how
happy you will be if you have a claim. When you read a review stating a
company is rated A+ by AM Best, you may think it provides A+ service,
and this is often not the case. Ratings by the Better Business Bureau are not
useful for insurance companies.
Some of the better reviews attempt to research rates for you, to let
you know which companies have a better price. I know, from my
experience selling auto & home insurance, there are too many
factors used in the calculation of rates, with big swings in price
based on your individual characteristics, for any survey of rates to tell any person which
companies will have good rates for them. For example, if you shop your
auto or home insurance with a large number of companies, some companies
will charge you twice as much as other companies. Change one thing,
like living in a different zip code, and you are likely to find the
companies having the best rates for you have changed.
Why my auto & home insurance reviews are better
My insurance company reviews focus on interpreting customer
& claims satisfaction
scores from JD Power insurance studies, and auto & home
insurance
complaints against companies filed with a state agency, such as a
state's Department of Insurance, to determine if a company is
performing better than average, average, or worse
than average.
People have bad experiences with every auto & home insurance
company. Even the most highly rated companies have dissatisfied
customers. Insurance companies are not your friends. They aren't going
to pay any claim they are not contractually obligated to pay. Insurance
companies are not going to pay a claim for more than the company
considers fair, beyond their legal obligation.
However, some auto & home insurance companies have higher
customer satisfaction, and a lower number of complaints filed with
state agencies, than other companies. By choosing an insurance company
with higher than average customer satisfaction & a lower number
of complaints, you decrease the chance you will have a bad experience
with your insurance company.
When an insurance company is included in a JD Power auto or
home insurance study, measuring claims or customer
satisfaction, I review its numerical score in each study. Only one
company (USAA) significantly outscores other companies consistently in these JD
Power studies, and occasionally, companies will significantly outscore other
companies in some studies. The problem I have with the power circle
rating system used by JD Power, is 4 power circle (better than most)
rated companies & sometimes 5 power circle rated companies, often do
not score much higher than average. Consumers thinking these highly
rated companies, with scores sometimes only a few points above the average
or a lower-rated competitor, are being misled by the circle rating
system, about these companies providing much better service.
However, these JD Power studies survey tens of thousands of customers
each year, and I think they are the most objective measure of customer
satisfaction available to the consumer. Rather than trying to use the study
results to erroneously determine
great, good, mediocre, & bad companies using each company's power
circle rating, I use each company's numerical scores in JD Power studies
from the last three years, to separate the consistently better than
average, average, and worse than average companies.
To verify whether a company is providing better than average, average,
or worse than average service to the majority of their customers, I
compare the company's JD Power study results (if rated by JD Power), to
its number of auto & home insurance complaints filed against it,
with state regulatory agencies. The most common reasons, for people to file auto
& home insurance complaints with a state insurance department
against insurance companies, are for delays in a claim payment,
unsatisfactory payment of a claim, and denial of a claim.
If you want more information about how I use JD Power study results & complaint data for my insurance company ratings, please click here.
In addition, my insurance company reviews give you information about
the company that matters: its market share trends, in which states it's
available, what types of insurance it sells, if it insures
most drivers, including drivers with tickets /claims /accidents, the
ways you can get a quote, and indications of competitive or uncompetitive pricing.