Auto-Owners is the No. 2 company in Insure.com’s Best Car Insurance Companies ranking for 2024 with 4.65 stars out of 5. The company is considered highly trustworthy and offers affordable monthly premiums.
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Auto-Owners is one of the top companies in Insure.com’s 2024 Best Insurance Companies auto survey. Protecting about 3 million households, Auto-Owners has affordable monthly premiums and trustworthiness.
Overall, Auto-Owners ranked No. 2 among regional carriers in Insure.com’s Best Auto Insurance Companies ranking for 2024 with 4.65 stars out of 5.
The Fortune 500 company has received many accolades and is ranked A++ (superior) by ratings agency AM Best. It has a low complaint index from NAIC and one of the cheapest premiums in the survey.
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.
Auto-Owners’ monthly premiums, $129, are one of the lowest of the companies we ranked. Auto-Owners low rates are one of the key reasons the company placed so highly on this year’s list of Best auto insurance companies.
The table below shows how much auto insurance from Auto-Owners compares with the monthly rates from its competitors.
Regarding customer satisfaction, 71% of Auto-Owners’ customers say they are satisfied with the company’s customer service. Erie topped this category with 90%.
Auto-Owners ranked above Mercury (68%) and the Auto Club Group (59%), but many competitors scored higher for customer satisfaction.
Auto-Owners was in the middle of the pack regarding ease of service, a metric for how easy it is to access policy documents and services, at 79%. Erie and State Farm led this category.
Almost three-quarters of Auto-Owners respondents reported satisfaction with the companies’ policy offerings. Auto-Owners offers home, condo, umbrella and flood insurance policies. Erie led this category followed by American Family.
Nine in 10 Auto-Owners customers said they would recommend the company to others. That’s a strong number, but the strongest in the category was Erie, with 100% of its customers saying they would tell friends and family about the company.
Auto-Owners scored in the upper half of companies for trustworthiness among all the companies in the survey with 79% of its customers saying they trusted it. Farmers also came in at 79%. Auto-Owners outperformed other companies such as Progressive (75%), Mercury and Travelers (74%) and Nationwide (66%). Erie led this category.
Nine of 10 customers plan to renew. However, several companies did better in this category. Erie (100%), Auto Club of Southern California and Mercury (both with 95%) topped this category.
Three out of four Auto-Owners customers gave it high marks for claims handling. Most companies had scores in the 70th percentile for claims handling. Allstate led this category with 86% of its readers giving it good grades.
Auto-Owners had a lower survey score for digital experience, with fewer customers saying it’s the best in this particular category, with a score of 47%. But few companies did well in this category. The top scorer was Geico followed by CSAA and Progressive.
Auto-Owners had a low survey score for discounts at 50%. Auto Club of Southern California won the discounts category with a score of 70%.
Auto-Owners didn’t do particularly well in this category. Only 45% of the customers we surveyed gave it high marks. Erie led the bundling category, a metric that takes into account discounts for bundling auto with other insurance products like home, renters, condo or life.
Established in 1916 and headquartered in Lansing, Michigan, Auto-Owners provides insurance to about 3 million households nationwide. The company has nearly 48,000 licensed agents who operate in 26 states.
Sources:
Auto-Owners.“Auto.” Accessed February 2024.
Auto-Owners. “Giving Back.” Accessed February 2024.
Auto-Owners. “Ways to Save.” Accessed February 2024.
Auto-Owners. “Who We Are.” 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.