American Family is the No. 8 company in the 2023 Insure.com Best Insurance Companies survey, with a score of 2.7 stars out of 5. More than 90% of American Family customers surveyed say they’re satisfied with the company’s customer service.
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.
Why you can trust Insure.com
Quality Verified
American Family consistently ranked toward the top of Insure.com’s survey of insurance consumers in a variety of categories, including customer satisfaction and auto and home bundling.
Overall, American Family came in No. 8 in Insure.com’s Best Car Insurance Companies ranking for 2023 with 2.7 (or, more precisely, 2.72) stars out of 5.
However, the company scored behind competitors for car insurance discounts.
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, including an explanation of our survey scores.
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 companies in our survey with a national average annual car insurance rate of $1,362, which comes out to around $114 a month.
American Family has high rankings for customer satisfaction, according to our survey. More than 90% of customers gave the company a strong grade in this category. Another customer satisfaction metric to consider is J.D. Power. American Family received a J.D. Power score of 838 (out of 1,000) for customer service, which was the second-highest score among the companies we ranked. J.D. Power grades auto insurance companies on state/regional levels – it doesn’t offer national scores. We averaged the state/regional results to get a sense of how the companies did as a whole.
American Family didn’t rank as well in terms of ease of service, which includes access to policy documents and services. Even though 86% of customers were pleased, other companies had higher scores in this category in our survey.
The company, like most insurers, had a percentage in the eighties for this category. At 83%, American Family came in below several competitors.
Customers would overwhelmingly recommend American Family to their friends and relatives – it had one of the higher scores in our survey at 94%.
Most insurers had scores in the 70-to-upper-80 percentile range. Three-quarters of American Family’s customers said they trust it. State Farm had the highest score in this category, with 84% of its customers saying they trust it.
Yes, with 86% of American Family customers indicating they’ll renew their auto policy. However, several other companies performed much better here.
American Family is in the middle of the pack when it comes to handling claims, with 69% of its customers saying the company did a satisfactory job in this area. Looking at another third-party metric: Its J.D. Power claims satisfaction rating was 874 out of 1,000, which is above the industry average of 873.
Bundling is one of the company’s strengths. American Family and Travelers had the highest scores at 81%. It also has a great discount of 18% for bundling home with auto, making it a good company if you want an insurance package.
American Family was founded in 1927 in Madison, Wisconsin. Today it is a Fortune 500 company with more than $9 billion in revenue and over 13,000 employees. Also known as AmFam, the company offers a wide range of insurance products but doesn’t operate in every state.
American Family. “American Family Insurance discounts.” Accessed December 2022.
American Family. “Control what you pay for car insurance.” Accessed December 2022.
J.D. Power. “Insurers Struggle to Manage Expectations in Auto Claims Process as Repair Times Increase, J.D. Power Finds.” Accessed December 2022.
J.D. Power. “Usage-Based Auto Insurance Takes Center Stage as Satisfaction Flatlines, J.D. Power Finds.” Accessed December 2022.
Insure.com in the fall of 2022 surveyed more than 1,500 people with auto, home, life and health insurance (1,080 people with auto insurance). The survey was conducted by online market research company Slice MR. Respondents were asked to name their insurer and the editors then selected – based on the number of responses – the top companies for this year’s Best auto insurance companies ranking. Insure.com needed 20 or more of a company’s customers to respond to the survey for that insurer to be included in the ranking, although in some categories the editors did consider companies with 18 or 19 responses.
Respondents were first asked to grade their insurer in the following categories – customer satisfaction, claims satisfaction and policy offerings. The percentage of respondents who said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their insurer is presented in the results.
Survey score calculation: Respondents were then asked to rank their insurer’s top three attributes out of more than a dozen presented – including customer satisfaction and policy offerings. For a number one choice, five points were given; for a second choice, three points; and for a third choice, a single point. The total points for each choice – first, second and third – were then divided by the number of each company’s customers who responded to that survey question to create a percentage. Those percentages are presented in the results as scores.
Respondents were then asked if they would recommend their insurer to someone else. The percentage who said yes is presented in the results.
They also 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 collected National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ complaint data, which ranks a company by the number of customer complaints it receives, and AM Best data, which measures financial strength.
They also collected insurance rate data from Quadrant Information Services (for auto and home insurance), Compulife (for life insurance) and the public health marketplace (for health insurance).
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 and home insurers, we used the following weights to calculate the overall score for each company: