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’s customers are highly likely to recommend the company to their friends, landing it among the top picks. The company landed the No. 3 ranking for regional companies on Insure.com’s 2024 Best home Insurance Companies list. It tied for this spot with Allstate.
Eighty-four percent of American Family customers surveyed rated it highly for customer service, and 91% would recommend the company to others. It also stands out from the pack for ease of service, with the top score in the survey. It was also the most trusted company in our survey. The company overall received 4.2 (actually, 4.24) stars in our rating.
Home insurance rates from American Family are below the national average, although not the cheapest. The company has an A rating from AM Best, indicating it will have no trouble meeting financial obligations, like paying claims. American Family scored well in most areas of the survey.
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.
Below is Insure.com’s review of the company. It’s based on third-party metrics, including two J.D. Power studies (Home Insurance Study and Property Claims Satisfaction Study) and an in-depth survey of insurance customers. Find the full methodology here.
American Family has rates below the national average but isn’t the cheapest compared to other top companies. Its average home insurance rate is $2,504 a year, a little below the national average of $2,604.
Our survey found that 84% of American Family customers score it highly for customer satisfaction, better than many of its top competitors. It ranked just a few percentage points behind Erie, which led this category.
However, American Family ranked a little below the industry average of 819 for overall satisfaction in J.D. Power’s Home Insurance study with a score of 813.
Our survey found that 84% of respondents are happy with the policy offerings from American Family. That places it in second behind the No. 1 ranked company, Erie, in this category.
The survey found that 89% of American Family customers are satisfied or highly satisfied with the company’s ease of service – getting access to policy documents and the ability to make policy changes easily. That was the top score in this category, with State Farm a close second at 87%.
According to our survey, it’s an emphatic yes – 91% of respondents said they’d recommend American Family to others – landing AmFam in third place for this category behind Erie and Progressive.
An impressive 89% of American Family customers who responded said they trust the company. Only one other company, State Farm, broke into the 80s in this difficult category.
According to our survey, 89% of American Family customers plan to renew their home insurance. That puts AmFam somewhere in the middle in this category, well behind Erie, which led the category at 97%
Based on our survey results, 71% of American Family’s customers say they’re satisfied with the way claims are handled, which is low compared to some competitors. Erie had a score of 92%, winning this category easily. J.D Power, however, gives American Family a rating of 875/1,000 for claims satisfaction, well above many competitors.
When asked to pick the top three categories in which their company is the best, only 29% of AmFam customers said digital experience was among them. That’s not the lowest, but several companies had scores in the 40s here. Allstate, Progressive and Travelers tied at the top of this category with 44%.
The American Family app is highly rated, with 4.8 stars, in the Apple App Store, but lower at 3.7 stars in the Google Play store.
American Family customers chose bundling as one of the company’s three best attributes at a rate of 50%, the second-highest score. Erie outpaced all other companies at 73%, but the rest were below 50%.
American Family’s auto and home bundling discount, at 16%, is about average.
American Family offers a good range of discounts, and when asked to pick the three things their insurance company is best for, 54% of American Family customers said discounts. That topped the category and was the only score among ranked companies over 50%.
American Family Insurance was founded in 1927 as Farmers Mutual Insurance Company (no relation to today’s Farmers Insurance) in Madison, Wisconsin. Today, it is a Fortune 500 company with almost 14,000 employees. The company changed its name to American Family in 1963. The current American Family Insurance Group has 15 different insurance and financial companies under its umbrella
Sources:
American Family Insurance. “Insurance Built for You.” Accessed January 2024.
American Family Insurance. “Homeowners insurance discounts” Accessed January 2024.
American Family Insurance. “Our story” Accessed January 2024.
J.D. Power. “2022 U.S. Property Claims Satisfaction Study.” Accessed January 2024.
J.D. Power. “2022 U.S. Home Insurance Study.” Accessed January 2024.
Insure.com in the fall of 2023 surveyed more than 1,750 insurance consumers (1,151 people with home insurance). The survey was conducted by online market research company Slice MR.
Respondents were asked to name their home insurer and then grade it in the following categories: customer satisfaction, ease of service, 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.
Respondents were then asked to pick their insurer’s top three attributes out of more than a dozen presented – including digital experience, discounts best for auto/home bundling and best for discounts. The number of responses for each attribute were totaled before dividing 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 home insurer to someone else and if they planned to renew their policies. 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 measure 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.
They 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 home insurers, we took the following and gave each a weight.
Each insurer was awarded between half a star and 5 stars. No company in the ranking received less than half a star in any category, and 5 stars was the most any insurer could receive.