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Its time for me to give my opinion again on the best and worst insurance companies out there. My approach is a little more detailed this year. I break categories down into sub-categories. Obviously, what I have written here is nothing more than my opinion. My opinion is based on over thirty years experience dealing with insurance companies. My ratings usually change a little bit each time that I do them. I will note though that I consistently rank three companies at the bottom.
Best Companies: (Tier 1)
A. The Best of the Best.
AMICA Insurance (Requires a good credit score to get)
Auto Owner's Insurance
USAA Insurance (Interested in making a serious offer to settle any reasonable claim)
Hartford Insurance (Good company and likes to cater to older drivers.)
Erie Insurance
B. Best, but probably not quite as good as the others when it comes to claims.
Fireman's Fund. They are good to deal with, but I don't see them often.
Kemper Insurance
Average Companies: (Tier II)
A. Best of the Average Companies
American Family Sometimes you must bring a lawsuit, but they will end up doing what they should.
Nationwide Insurance. I was very impressed at how they handled two of my injury claims.
Safeco Insurance
B. Average/Average Companies
Dairyland/Sentry. Has actually been a better company lately than they have been in the past.
Travelers. This company has declined over the years in my ratings. It is now only average/average
Bear River Insurance.
Farm Bureau Insurance. The best sentence I can come up with to describe them is "solid, but not generous".
Mutual of Enumclaw.
Liberty Mutual. Not terrible, but I wish they'd spend more money on paying claims than they do on all their t.v. advertising.
Casualty Underwriters
C. Mediocre/Average
State Farm Insurance. Lots of advertising, but to get a real claim paid you have to fight. I spent over a year trying to resolve a closed head injury claim for policy limits.
American National Insurance. Its often a fight to get them to do what they should do.
GEICO Insurance. Has moved up a notch from Tier III. The company is still cheap, but at least they make an attempt to get cases resolved out of court.
Tier III (Companies Best Avoided)
Allstate Insurance. Legions of bad stories. There used to be a website entitled Allstateinsurancesucks.com. I understand its gone now though. My own experiences with them have been poor. I usually end up having to try or arbitrate most injury cases with them because of lowball settlement offers.
Progressive Insurance. They make a big show of paying cheap and easy claims. You don't want to have to deal with them for the major ones.
Farmers Insurance. One of the most difficult companies to work with that exists. IMO, they would rather spend more money to defeat a legitimate claim than to settle it.
Last edited by markg91359; 04-25-2020 at 08:15 PM..
Thanks a lot, I have Geico and didn't know they are way down there, raised my premium by a lot too, and I didn't file any claim with them, no ticket or anything for the last 12 years.
Most of them offer umbrella coverage right? Need a quote for auto, homeowners and umbrella.
How about price wise, any chance that you can make a version of that as well?
I work for Defense Insurance Civil Litigation Firm, and behind the scenes, AutoOwners is among the best and their adjusters are a pleasure to work with. I am not surprised to see them in tier 1 ranking. I'm surprised Zurich is not on the list.
I'm not disagreeing or arguing with you on your list (I enjoyed reading through it), but it would just be interesting to know what your background is to come up with this list since most people don't deal with that many insurers firsthand to form a strong opinion, outside of their own or maybe a past company. I'm thinking 3-4 might be a typical number people would have an opinion on.
It is also really interesting that the ones on the bottom of your list are the most heavily advertised.
Its time for me to give my opinion again on the best and worst insurance companies out there. My approach is a little more detailed this year. I break categories down into sub-categories. Obviously, what I have written here is nothing more than my opinion. My opinion is based on over thirty years experience dealing with insurance companies. My ratings usually change a little bit each time that I do them. I will note though that I consistently rank three companies at the bottom.
Whoa, back up the truck. You're basing your rankings on how insurance companies handle third party liability claims?
And companies that actually fight to protect their policyholders are at the bottom of the list?
Frankly, as a policyholder, those companies would get top marks.
I'm guessing you are a personal injury attorney who prefers insurance companies to roll over for you.
I'm not disagreeing or arguing with you on your list (I enjoyed reading through it), but it would just be interesting to know what your background is to come up with this list since most people don't deal with that many insurers firsthand to form a strong opinion, outside of their own or maybe a past company. I'm thinking 3-4 might be a typical number people would have an opinion on.
It is also really interesting that the ones on the bottom of your list are the most heavily advertised.
Quote:
Originally Posted by adjusterjack
Whoa, back up the truck. You're basing your rankings on how insurance companies handle third party liability claims?
And companies that actually fight to protect their policyholders are at the bottom of the list?
Frankly, as a policyholder, those companies would get top marks.
I'm guessing you are a personal injury attorney who prefers insurance companies to roll over for you.
I am a personal injury attorney with thirty-five years experience. I am basing this list on my experiences over the years dealing with all these companies. However, I not only deal with them on bodily injury claims, but I frequently am drawn into property damage claims too when clients have trouble with these. My experience consists of also dealing with first party claims for medical expenses, lost wage benefits, and house service benefits under our state's no-fault law. Other first party claims experience would in the area of presenting and collecting on underinsured motorist claims.
The phrase "roll over" is too strong. However, I do expect insurance companies to pay all legitimate claims, large and small, promptly and upon presentation of reasonable documentation. Ultimately, that is what insurance is for: To pay all legitimate claims. The real test of an insurance company is not whether it pays for your auto glass claim, but whether it honors a serious big dollar claim whether it be for property damage or bodily injury.
The reality is some companies simply do a lot better job of it than others.
I work for Defense Insurance Civil Litigation Firm, and behind the scenes, AutoOwners is among the best and their adjusters are a pleasure to work with. I am not surprised to see them in tier 1 ranking. I'm surprised Zurich is not on the list.
I don't deal much with Zurich. However, I did have one claim with them that was a major claim. They responded responsibly and we settled the claim out-of-court. I didn't put them on my list, but if I did--based on that one experience--they would go into the "best" category.
Thanks for the list. This type of inside info is awesome for consumers. In my personal experience as a driver this is my list.
Excellent: USAA and American Family
Average: Nationwide
Bad: Travelers, esurance
Horrible: AAA, Allstate
This is just my opinion based on personal experience with each company.
Having read most of the newer threads in this sub-forum, I'm curious what insurance company poster adjusterjack works for? He has very biased opinions. My guess is he works for Allstate, AAA or Travelers.
What about Chubb? We are dealing with a claim with them now.
Nationwide was fine with my claim. Paid quickly but I had to get the manager involved to get my check because the claims adjuster was out of office or so.
Current insurance company, AAA Meemic has been pretty good with our current claim. They quickly paid off the loan once they received the information from the leasing company. I just received my $500 deductible back for our accident in November.
I have had great experiences with USAA. The only one better has been NJM - but I was only in NJ for a short period.
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