Auto-Owners home insurance review and ratings 2023

Auto-Owners ranked in second place for home insurance in Insure.com’s 2023 Best Insurance Companies survey, with customers generally scoring the company well for everything from customer service to discounts.

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Our take

Auto-Owners holds its own against much larger insurers in terms of service. In fact, it landed at the No. 2 spot, behind only insurance giant State Farm, on the 2023 Best Home Insurance Companies list. Customers generally score the company well for everything from customer service to discounts, but rates aren’t as low as some competitors. 

Bucking the current trend toward all-digital service, Auto-Owners doesn’t offer quotes online and stands behind its decision to quote home insurance only through agents. That’s a downside for those who prefer to be able to shop for insurance without having to speak to anyone directly. 

However, Auto-Owners has developed a solid reputation and has an A++ rating with AM Best. For those who like personal service, it’s a good pick.

Auto-Owners
Auto-Owners Ratings
Overall Rating: 4.0
Average Premium: 4.7
NAIC: 0.19
Customer Satisfaction: 4.4
AM Best Rating: A++

Pros and Cons

Pros:
  • Rated well for customer satisfaction and likely to be recommended to others
  • Rates are below average
  • Scored highly for discounts
Cons:
  • No online quoting is available
  • Not available in all states

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.

How much Auto-Owners costs

The average home insurance rate is $2,433; Auto-Owners is well below that, although Allstate has lower rates. 

Company Average annual rate
Auto-Owners $2,034
Erie $2,089
Allstate $1,895

How Auto-Owners scores for customer satisfaction

Auto-Owners customers are satisfied, with 89% saying they’re happy with the company for overall service. It outscored several other large companies in this category. State Farm led with 93% of its customers giving it a high score. 

Auto-Owners didn’t fare quite as well in J.D. Power’s 2022 Home Insurance Study, which rates companies for overall customer satisfaction, with a score that’s only a few points above the 819 average. It still outscored several big competitors. 

Company Percent of customers that are satisfied J.D. Power overall satisfaction score (out of 1,000)
Auto-Owners 89% 825
Progressive 86% 801
Nationwide 81% 816

How Auto-Owners scores for policy offerings

Auto-Owners performed really well in this category. Of the survey respondents who are Auto-Owners customers, 94% said they were satisfied or highly satisfied with policy offerings from the company. It trailed only Travelers among the companies we ranked. 

Company Percent of customers satisfied with the company’s policy offerings
Auto-Owners 94%
Travelers 91%
Allstate 87%

How Auto-Owners scores on ease of service

Auto-Owners outscored some big names in this category, including State Farm. The survey found that 89% of customers found Auto-Owners easy to deal with. Travelers led this category among ranked companies, with 91% of its customers giving it a high score. 

Company Percent of customers satisfied with the company’s ease of service
Auto-Owners 89%
State Farm 88%
Nationwide 75%

Would current customers recommend Auto-Owners to others?

Auto-Owners isn’t the most recommended company for home insurance of those surveyed, but customers still would recommend it to others at a rate of 89%. Most competitors scored better in this category, which, among ranked companies, was led by State Farm. 

Company Percent of customers who would recommend the company to others
Auto-Owners 89%
State Farm 97%
Erie 88%

How trustworthy is Auto-Owners?

Auto-Owners rated lower than some companies, with 72% of customers saying they trust their insurance company. State Farm led this category, with 83% of its customers saying they trust it, but most companies didn’t do especially well here. 

Company Percent of customers who say they trust the company
Auto-Owners 72%
Allstate 80%
Farmers 69%

Do Auto-Owners customers plan to renew?

Of the Auto-Owners customers surveyed, 89% plan to renew their home insurance with the company. That’s not as high as some competitors, but better than many companies on the survey. Travelers led this category. 

Company Percent of customers who plan to renew with the company
Auto-Owners 89%
Travelers 97%
Farmers 87%

Auto-Owners home insurance coverage types

  • Condo 
  • Renters 
  • Rental dwelling 
  • Mobile homes 
  • Property and valuables 
  • Farm

Auto-Owners home insurance discounts

  • Multi-policy (includes life as well) 
  • Payment history 
  • Green (paperless billing) 
  • Protective devices 
  • Automatic backup generator 
  • Paid-in-full 
  • Advance quote 
  • Water shut-off system 
  • Mortgage-free 
  • Favorable loss history

Other policies offered

  • Auto 
  • Motorcycle 
  • Boat 
  • ATV/off-road 
  • Motorhome and RV 
  • Trailer 
  • Life 
  • Business 
  • Umbrella 
  • Pet 
  • Flood

States where Auto-Owners offers coverage

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Table
States where Auto-Owners offers coverage
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Colorado
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Utah
Virginia
Wisconsin
AL AK AZ AR CA CO CT DC DE FL GA HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND OH OK OR PA RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VA WA WV WI WY
Available
Not available

Company background

Auto-Owners

Auto-Owners Insurance Group was founded in 1916 and has its headquarters in Lansing, MI. It sells auto, home, life insurance and more through a network of 48,000 independent agents. The company has more than 4,700 employees. It’s a Fortune 500 company that is dedicated to selling insurance solely through agents, as it has for over 100 years.

Resources and Methodology

Sources:

Auto-Owners “Homeowners” Accessed December 2022.

Auto-Owners. “History” 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

Methodology

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: 

  • AM Best: 25% of total score
  • NAIC: 15% of total score
  • Annual premium: 20% of total score
  • Survey: 40% of total score (10% customer satisfaction, 10% recommended and 10% renewal rate, 10% claims handling)

No company in the ranking received less than 1 star in any category and 5 stars was the most any insurer could receive.

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Leslie Kasperowicz
Managing Editor

 
  

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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