American Family ranks at No. 8 in Insure.com’s 2023 Best Insurance Companies home insurance survey with a score of 2.9 stars out of 5. It ranked highly for claims satisfaction.
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.
Why you should trust Insure.com
Quality Verified
American Family’s customers are highly likely to recommend the company to their friends, landing it among the top picks, with a No. 8 ranking on Insure.com’s 2023 Best Home Insurance Companies list.
Eighty-eight percent of American Family customers surveyed rated it highly for customer service, and 94% would recommend the company to others. It also stands out from the pack when it comes to claims satisfaction.
Home insurance rates from American Family are below the national average, and although rates aren’t the lowest among the home insurers surveyed, they’re close. The company has an A rating from AM Best, indicating it will have no trouble meeting financial obligations, like paying claims. However, our survey found American Family scored below average in categories like ease of service and policy offerings.
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, including an explanation of our survey scores.
American Family has rates below the national average but isn’t the cheapest compared to other top companies. Its average home insurance rate is $2,139 a year, below the national average of $2,433.
Our survey found that 88% 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 State Farm, which led this category.
However, American Family ranked second for overall satisfaction in J.D. Power’s Home Insurance study with a score of 842.
Our survey found that 79% of respondents are happy with the policy offerings from American Family. Travelers led this category. Most insurance companies scored fell between 80% and 90%, placing American Family a bit on the low side.
The survey found that 83% of American Family customers are satisfied or highly satisfied with the company’s ease of service – getting access to policy documents and the ability make policy changes easily. Travelers led here.
In this category, most companies’ scores fell between 80% and 90%
According to our survey, it’s an emphatic yes – 94% of respondents said they’d recommend American Family to others – tying it with Travelers for second place among companies we ranked and behind the winner, State Farm.
In all, 73% of American Family customers who responded said they trust the company. State Farm led this category. In most cases, companies had scores in the 70th and 80th percentile range.
According to our survey, 94% of American Family customers plan to renew their home insurance. That’s high compared to many of its competitors. American Family appears to inspire loyalty. Travelers led this category.
Based on our survey results, 83% of American Family’s customers say they’re satisfied with the way claims are handled. J.D Power gives American Family a rating of 868/1,000 for claims satisfaction, well above many competitors. Liberty Mutual, which isn’t ranked, led this survey category.
American Family offers a good range of discounts, however, it placed in the middle in this category among ranked companies. Liberty Mutual, which isn’t ranked, won this category.
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
American Family Insurance. “Insurance Built for You.” Accessed December 2022.
American Family Insurance. “Homeowners insurance discounts” Accessed December 2022.
American Family Insurance. “Our story” Accessed December 2022.
J.D. Power. “2022 U.S. Property Claims Satisfaction Study.” Accessed December 2022
J.D. Power. “2022 U.S. Home Insurance Study.” Accessed December 2022
Insure.com in the fall of 2022 surveyed more than 1,500 people with auto, home, life and health insurance (805 with home 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 home 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.
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 used the following weights to calculate the overall score for each company:
No company in the ranking received less than 1 star in any category and 5 stars was the most any insurer could receive.