Which Auto Insurance Companies Offer the Best Claims Service?
Last updated November 2023
When shopping for insurance, many drivers care about more than just cost. If you have a claim, you want it to be quickly paid so you can get back on the road with minimal hassle. Our ratings tables evaluate insurers for claims-handling service. We found that some low-priced companies also rate fairly high for service quality.
Ratings from Policyholders
We asked consumers who had recently made auto insurance claims to rate their companies “inferior,” “adequate,” or “superior” on several elements of service. Our ratings tables show what percentage of policyholders rated each company “superior” on each survey question. Click here for a further description of our policyholder survey and other research methods and how to interpret them.
As you can see, the table reveals big differences in how customers rated companies. For our survey question “overall claims-handling quality,” for example, scores range from 81 percent or higher for Amica, Electric, Erie, NJM, USAA, and Westfield to 60 percent or less for Farmers, Hanover, Kemper, Liberty, Metromile, Plymouth Rock, and Progressive.
Feedback from Auto Body Shops
We also asked auto body shops to rate the insurers “poor,” “fair,” “good,” “very good,” or “excellent” on “treating their customers (car owners) fairly.” Our ratings tables show the percent of surveyed shops that rated each company “good,” “very good,” or “excellent,” and the number of ratings each company received.
Surveyed shops gave highest marks to Amica, Chubb, Erie, Plymouth Rock, and Westfield. Shops rated Allstate, Encompass, GEICO, Liberty, Metromile, Progressive, and State Farm lowest.
Complaint Histories
Another way to assess quality is to look at the number of complaints filed against each company with state regulators. While policyholders might rate a company less than “superior” if its deficiencies are minor, filing a formal complaint with a government regulatory agency presumably reflects serious dissatisfaction.
Our ratings tables also report counts of private passenger auto insurance complaints filed in New Jersey and Pennsylvania during a recent three-year period. It also reports “complaint rates,” which take into account the fact that companies that do much more business than others are likely to incur more complaints.
Note that the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance releases information on complaints to the public only if the state determined the insurer broke a state or federal law. The problem: Most consumer complaints about insurance companies are related to slow or insufficient claims payments or lousy service, which usually are not illegal activities. As a result, New Jersey publicly reports few complaints about insurance companies, making it difficult for us to examine companies’ performance there.
Non-renewals and Terminations
You don’t want an insurer that will terminate your coverage or jack up your rates if you get a speeding ticket or file a claim. Losing your insurance is at best inconvenient—most insurance companies charge very high rates to customers who had coverage terminated by other outfits. At worst you’ll have to enroll in a special plan for high-risk drivers, the most costly option of all.
Laws in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania place restrictions on insurance companies for policy terminations. It is relatively easy in all three states for them to cancel a policy during the policy’s first 60 days while a company checks the accuracy of its policyholders’ applications. After that, termination is much more difficult. Even at the time of renewal, there are restraints and certain procedures that must be followed.
Our survey of policyholders asked them to rate their companies on “not unreasonably cutting coverage after claim.” The results appear on our ratings tables. But because cancellations are fairly uncommon, we don’t recommend spending a lot more money to sign on with a company with a great cancellation record.
Of course, even if a company doesn’t drop you it can still dramatically increase your premium in response to an accident or violation, forcing you to terminate on your own to find a lower-priced company. Our survey results for “not unreasonably raising premium after claim” reveal big company-to-company variation.
