Auto-Owners is the No. 3 company in Insure.com’s Best Car Insurance Companies ranking for 2023 with 3.8 stars out of 5. The company has high renewal rates and affordable monthly premiums.
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Auto-Owners is one of the top companies in Insure.com’s 2023 Best Insurance Companies auto survey. Protecting about 3 million households, Auto-Owners ranked well for high renewal rates and affordable monthly premiums.
The Fortune 500 company has received many accolades and is ranked A++ (superior) by AM Best, a national independent rating authority. It has a J.D. Power score of 837 (out of 1,000) for customer service – above the average of 834.
Overall, Auto-Owners ranked No. 3 in Insure.com’s Best Auto Insurance Companies ranking for 2023 with 3.8 stars out of 5.
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 are less expensive than Allstate but higher than Erie Insurance, according to CarInsurance.com data. When compared with American Family and Travelers, Auto-Owners falls in between – pricier than American Family but cheaper than Travelers.
See the table below to see how much auto insurance from Auto-Owners compares with the monthly rate from its competitors.
As far as customer satisfaction, 82% of Auto-Owners’ customers say they are satisfied with the company’s customer service, which is an average rating among the top companies with the most responses in our survey. Erie and Travelers led this category.
Auto-Owners customer satisfaction score from J.D. Power was a respectable 837 out of 1,000 points. The average is 834. J.D. Power grades auto insurance companies on state/regional levels – it doesn’t offer national scores. We averaged the state/regional results to see how the companies did as a whole.
Auto-Owners didn’t ranked as high as some competitors on the ease-of-service metric for accessing policy documents and services, at 73%. Auto-Owners scored lower than Allstate, Travelers, Erie and other auto insurers in our survey.
Seventy-three percent of Auto-Owners respondents reported satisfaction with the company’s policy offerings. Auto-Owners had one of lowest rankings in this category among the companies we ranked, despite its comprehensive offerings of home, condo, umbrella – and even flood – insurance policies.
Auto-Owners ranked higher than five other auto insurance providers in this category, with a solid 91% showing. Strongest in the category were Travelers and Erie, tying in the top spot, followed by State Farm, American Family and Nationwide.
Auto-Owners beat out six other providers in this category, ranking it in the upper half for trustworthiness among all the companies included in this survey. Auto-Owners outperformed other companies, such as Erie, Nationwide, Farmers and Progressive.
Auto-Owners receives an honorable mention in this category, beating out six other competitors that included State Farm, Geico, Liberty Mutual and American Family. With 95% of customers saying they plan to renew, it was topped by providers such as Erie, Progressive and Travelers.
For claims handling, fewer customers ranked Auto-Owners as the best for claims in comparison to other companies surveyed. However, Auto-Owners’ J.D. Power claims satisfaction score was 865/1,000, which is only slightly below the industry average of 873.
Auto-Owners has a team of independent agents working in 26 states to bring consumers auto, home, life, property and other insurance products. The company, founded in 1916, offers a slew of discounts to customers, including discounts for multiple policies, vehicle safety features and paperless billing.
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.
In 2018, Auto-Owners launched an A-O Give Back program that encourages associates to participate in local charity events, such as Habitat for Humanity and the Polar Bear plunge. It also hosts an annual Suits & Sneakers event, which raises funds for the American Cancer Society.
Auto-Owners.“Auto.” Accessed December 2022.
Auto-Owners.“Giving Back.” Accessed December 2022.
Auto-Owners.“Ways to Save.” Accessed December 2022.
Auto-Owners.“Who We Are.” 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:
In our rankings, no company received less than 1 star and no company received more than 5.