Erie auto insurance ranked No. 1 in Insure.com’s Best Car Insurance Companies ranking for 2024 with 4.67 stars out of 5. Erie customers give the company high marks for customer satisfaction, ease of service and policy offerings. They also said they would renew their policies and that they’d recommend the company to others.
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John is the editorial director for CarInsurance.com, Insurance.com and Insure.com. Before joining QuinStreet, John was a deputy editor at The Wall Street Journal and had been an editor and reporter at a number of other media outlets where he covered insurance, personal finance, and technology.
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Erie Insurance ranked No. 1 among regional carriers in Insure.com’s ranking of the Best Car Insurance Companies for 2024 with 4.67 stars out of 5.
Customers were keen to recommend Erie to friends and family, and the company offers the most affordable rates of the carriers in our ranking of the Best auto insurance companies. It also received top marks for customer satisfaction and ease of service.
However, Erie is a smaller company, with coverage only available in 12 states.
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.
Erie Insurance has the cheapest premiums among the companies in our ranking. Erie’s monthly premiums of $123 per month are less than those of competitors on our list, such as Auto-Owners and Amica, as well as industry heavyweights State Farm and Geico.
Erie has the highest rankings for customer satisfaction of all the companies in our ranking. In the survey, 90% of customers were satisfied or highly satisfied with Erie overall. American Family was a close second at 89%, and State Farm and Farmers had satisfaction rates of 84%.
Erie ranked at No. 1 in our ranking, with a score of 90%. Erie customers were pleased with how easy it is to access policy documents and other services.
When it comes to policy offerings, Erie Insurance was the top performer. In Insure.com’s recent insurance-consumer survey, 88% of customers said they were satisfied with the company’s offerings – the best score among the top 15 companies.
Customers would overwhelmingly recommend Erie Insurance to their friends and relatives. In the survey, 100% of customers said they’d recommend it. This is the best showing of the companies Insure.com ranked. The next closest was State Farm, with 92% of its customers saying they’d recommend it.
Erie scored at the top of the list in the trustworthiness category for 2024, with 86% of its customers giving it high marks. This was a particularly tough category, with only four companies scoring higher than 80%.
Erie Insurance customers do plan to renew in a big way. A full 100% of respondents said they would renew their policies. The Auto Club of Southern California and Mercury scored second in the category with 95% of their customers saying they’d renew.
Erie Insurance placed third in our ranking for claims handling. Competitors Allstate (86%) and State Farm (85%) bested the company in this category.
Erie Insurance had a mid-range score for digital experience, but few companies did well in this category. The top scorer was Geico, followed by CSAA.
Erie Insurance had a decent survey score for discounts at 69%, which was the same score for Progressive and the Auto Club Group (ACG). The Auto Club of Southern California topped this category.
Erie Insurance had the top score for bundling, a metric that takes into account discounts for bundling auto with other insurance products like home, renters, condo or life.
Since 1925, Erie Insurance has been fulfilling its promise to provide auto, home, business and life insurance rooted in the principles of honesty, decency, service and affordability. Rated A+ (Superior) by A.M. Best, Erie is currently the nation’s 12th largest homeowners insurer, 12th largest automobile insurer and 13th largest commercial lines insurer. Based in Erie, Pa., Erie is a Fortune 500 company with more than six million policies in force and operates in 12 states and the District of Columbia.
Sources:
Erie Insurance. “Auto insurance.” Accessed February 2024.
Erie Insurance. “Car insurance coverage explained.” 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.