American Family is No. 4 among regional carriers in the 2024 Insure.com Best Car Insurance Companies survey, scoring 4.01 stars out of 5 stars. Customers give it high marks for customer service, policy offerings and trustworthiness.
Laura Longero is a content strategist and communications leader with more than 15 years of experience in content development in journalism, marketing and communications for start-ups to global companies. She started her career as a reporter and editor and honed her journalistic skills at the USA Today Network, working in several roles, as well as managing content and writing at MoneyGeek and XYZ Media.
Leslie Kasperowicz is an insurance educator and content creation professional with nearly two decades of experience first directly in the insurance industry at Farmers Insurance and then as a writer, researcher, and educator for insurance shoppers writing for sites like ExpertInsuranceReviews.com and InsuranceHotline.com and managing content, now at Insurance.com.
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American Family is No. 4 among regional carriers in the 2024 Insure.com Best Insurance Companies survey, scoring 4.01 stars out of 5.
American Family consistently ranked toward the top of Insure.com’s survey of insurance consumers in multiple categories, including customer satisfaction and auto and home bundling. However, the company scored behind competitors for car insurance discounts and digital experience.
Below is Insure.com’s review of the company. It’s based on third-party metrics and an in-depth survey of insurance customers. Find the full methodology here.
AM Best's Financial Strength Rating is an independent opinion of an insurer's financial strength and ability to meet its ongoing insurance policy and contract obligations.
American Family has competitive prices compared to other ranked companies with a national average monthly premium of $142, which fell in the middle of the premiums we compared. It’s more expensive than Erie and Nationwide but cheaper than Geico and Progressive.
American Family, according to Insure.com’s survey of insurance consumers, has the second-highest customer satisfaction score of the insurers we ranked, coming in just behind Erie.
American Family ranked well in terms of ease of service, which includes access to policy documents and services. American Family had one of the higher scores in our survey, after Erie at 90% and State Farm and Travelers at 86%.
American Family scored second in the policy offerings category, just one percentage point behind Erie, which was first among ranked companies with 88%.
Customers would overwhelmingly recommend American Family to their friends and relatives – it had one of the higher scores in our survey, landing in third place just behind State Farm (92%) and Erie, which topped this category.
American Family had the third-best score in this category at 81%, beating out competitors like Farmers (79%), Auto-Owners (79%) and Travelers (74%). Erie had the highest percentage of customers who said they trust it. Most insurers scored in the 70th to 80th percentile range.
Yes; 87% of American Family customers indicated they’ll renew their auto policy. Erie earned the highest score – 100% of customers said they’d renew.
American Family scored fairly well when it comes to handling claims, with 76% of its customers saying the company did a satisfactory job in this area. Allstate came in first among ranked companies at 86%.
American Family scored in the bottom half for digital and online experience with a score of 40%. But it should be noted that no insurers did particularly well in this category. The top scorer was Geico with 64%, followed by CSAA and Progressive at 60%.
American Family’s score for discounts at 57% was in the middle of the ranking. Auto Club of Southern California had the top score among ranked companies at 70%.
Bundling is one of the company’s strongest points. American Family had the second-highest percentage of satisfied customers – at 66% – behind Erie’s 69%.
American Family was founded in 1927 in Madison, Wisconsin. Today, it is a Fortune 500 company with more than 10,000 employees. Also known as AmFam, the company offers a wide range of insurance products but doesn’t operate in every state.
Sources:
American Family Insurance. “Car Insurance Coverages.” Accessed February 2024.
Insure.com in the fall of 2023 surveyed more than 1,750 insurance consumers (1,459 people with auto insurance). Online market research company Slice MR conducted the survey. Respondents were asked to name their auto insurer and then grade it in the following categories – customer satisfaction, ease of service and policy offerings. The percentage of respondents who said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their insurer is presented in the results.
Respondents were then asked to pick their insurer’s top three attributes out of more than a dozen presented – trustworthiness, claims satisfaction, digital experience, discounts and best for auto/home bundling. The responses for each attribute were totaled and then divided by the number of each company’s customers who responded to that survey question to create a percentage.
Respondents were then asked if they would recommend their auto insurer to someone else and whether they would renew with their company. The percentage who said yes is presented in the results.
Finally, respondents were given the statement “I trust my insurance company” and asked if they strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement. The percentage of those who said they agreed or strongly agreed is presented in the results.
The editors compiled the survey results and then selected – based on the number of survey responses – the top companies for further evaluation.
They then collected AM Best data, which measures financial strength, and National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ complaint data, which ranks a company by the number of customer complaints it receives. The Insure.com team identified the NAIC company code or codes that were the primary underwriting companies for each carrier and line of business using total annual premiums. The associated NAIC complaint index score was used in the calculations. If more than one underwriting company was identified for a line, the editors used a weighted average of the NAIC complaint index scores.
In addition, we also created star rankings for each company. Respondents were asked to pick their insurer’s top three attributes out of the more than the dozen presented, again including customer satisfaction and policy offerings. The number of responses for each attribute was totaled and then divided by the number of each company’s customers who responded to that survey question to create the star ranking.
The editors also collected insurance rate data from Quadrant Information Services.
With the help of Prof. David Marlett, Ph.D., Managing Director of the Brantley Risk and Insurance Center at Appalachian State University, the editors created a rating system to determine which insurance companies were best in each sector. For auto insurers, we took the following and gave each a weight.
Each insurer was awarded from half a star to 5 stars. No insurer in our star ranking received less than half a star and 5 stars was the most any insurer could receive.