Farmers auto insurance review and ratings 2023

Farmers is ranked highly in the 2023 Insure.com Best Insurance Companies survey for auto insurance with 2 stars out of 5, with most customers saying they’re satisfied with the company’s policy offerings and bundling home and auto.

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Our take

Farmers, one of the largest auto insurers in the U.S. with around 5% of the industry’s market share, ranked highly in Insure.com’s survey of insurance consumers for discounts and bundling home and auto policies. 

Overall, Farmers ranked No. 10 in Insure.com’s ranking of the Best Car Insurance Companies for 2023 with 2 stars out of 5. Farmers has higher premiums than all but one of the top companies on our list, which brought its star score down. 

Farmers received an A rating from AM Best, which measures the company’s credit rating and financial strength and a J.D. Power score of 815 (out of 1,000) for customer service.

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.

Farmers
Farmers Ratings
Overall Rating: 2.0
Average Premium: 2.4
NAIC: 0.77
Customer Satisfaction: 3.9
AM Best Rating: A

Pros and Cons

Pros:
  • Great discounts
  • Great for bundling home and auto policies
Cons:
  • Lower recommendation rate than competitors
  • Higher-than-average premiums

How much Farmers costs

The table below shows how much auto insurance from Farmers costs compared with monthly rates from its competitors, according to 2022 data. Farmers isn’t the cheapest, but it isn’t the most expensive either.

Company Monthly rate/premium
Farmers $165
Erie $105
Allstate $174

How Farmers rates for customer satisfaction

When it comes to customer satisfaction, 78% of Farmers’ customers said they were satisfied with the company’s customer service, which wasn’t as high a grade as some competitors received. Another customer satisfaction metric to consider is J.D. Power. Farmers’ J.D. Power rating was 815, which is just a bit lower than the average J.D. Power customer satisfaction rating of 834 (on a 1,000-point scale) for auto insurance companies in 2022. J.D. Power grades auto insurance companies on state/regional levels – it doesn’t offer national scores. We averaged the state/regional results to get a sense of how the companies did as a whole.

Company Percent of customers that are satisfied
Farmers 78%
Allstate 84%
Auto-Owners 82%

How Farmers scores on ease of service

Farmers received higher-than-average marks from its customers when it comes to accessing policy documents and services. Eighty-two percent of Farmers customers said they were satisfied, compared with 73% of Auto-Owners customers and 88% of Allstate customers.

Company Percent of customers satisfied with the company’s ease of service
Farmers 82%
Allstate 88%
Auto-Owners 73%

How Farmers scores on policy offerings

When it comes to policy offerings, 85% of Farmers respondents said they’re satisfied with the companies’ policy offerings like rideshare coverage, umbrella insurance and homeowners/condo/rental policies. Erie scored the highest in this category.

Company Percent of customers satisfied with the company’s policy offerings
Farmers 85%
Erie 91%
Auto-Owners 73%

Would current customers recommend Farmers to others?

In all, 84% of Farmers customers said they would recommend the company to others. But most companies had percentages in the upper eighties and nineties in this category. Erie and Travelers led this category.

Company Percent of customers who would recommend the company to others
Farmers 84%
Erie 96%
Travelers 96%

How trustworthy is Farmers?

Farmers earned decent marks for trustworthiness with a score of 73%, but that number put it in the middle of the pack among our top 10 companies – behind State Farm but ahead of Nationwide.

Company Percent of customers who say they trust the company
Farmers 73%
State Farm 84%
Nationwide 65%

Do Farmers customers plan to renew?

Regarding renewals, 87% of Farmers customers said they’d renew. Most companies did well in this category. Farmers finished behind top earners Erie, Nationwide and Progressive.

Company Percent of customers who plan to renew with the company
Farmers 87%
Erie 100%
American Family 86%

How Farmers scores on claims handling

When it comes to claims handling, a few competitors, such as Allstate, ranked better than Farmers in our survey. However, looking at a third-party metric, Farmers scored above average on J.D. Power’s claims satisfaction survey at 882/1,000.

Company Survey score for claims handling
Farmers 64%
Allstate 87%
Liberty Mutual 53%

How Farmers scores for discounts

Respondents rated Farmers as one of the top companies in our survey for discounts, following just a handful of companies including State Farm and Progressive.

Company Average discount Survey score for discounts
Farmers 6% 67%
State Farm 15% 77%
Progressive 8% 76%

How Farmers scores for bundling home and auto policies

When it comes to discounts and bundling home and auto policies, Farmers was ranked highly by survey respondents. American Family and Travelers had the highest ratings, but Farmers came in with a respectable 62% of respondents saying it was best for bundling.

Company Discount for bundling home and auto Survey score for bundling home and auto
Farmers 21% 62%
Travelers 10% 81%
American Family 18% 81%

Farmers car insurance coverages

  • Personal and commercial auto insurance
  • Motorcycle insurance
  • Motor homes, fifth wheels and travel trailers
  • Boat and watercraft insurance
  • Collectible autos
  • Rideshare insurance
  • Offroad and ATV insurance

Farmers additional policies

  • Homeowners
  • Renters
  • Condo
  • Mobile/manufactured homes
  • Vacation homes
  • Vacant homes
  • Earthquake and flood policies
  • Pet insurance
  • Life insurance
  • Umbrella insurance
  • Financial products
  • Business insurance

Farmers car insurance coverage options

  • Usage-based/telematics Signal program: Rates can be based on your mileage and how you drive.
  • Accident forgiveness: Your rates won”t increase after your first accident.
  • New car replacement: If you total your car, the insurer will pay for a new car.
  • Mobile app: The insurer offers an app for smartphones.

Farmers car insurance discounts

  • Multiline policy: Discount for more than one type of policy with the same insurance provider.
  • Multicar: Discount for two or more vehicles on the same car insurance policy.
  • Pay in full: Premium paid in full at the start of the term policy
  • EFT: Monthly automatic payments
  • Safe driver: Driver with zero BI points.
  • Good student: With a 3.0 GPA or better
  • Homeowner
  • Affinity: Professional organizations/military
  • Defensive driver: Older than 55 with state-approved driver training within three years

States where Farmers offers coverage

Graph
Table
States where Farmers offers coverage
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming
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

Farmers

In 1928, Farmers was launched out of a one-room office in downtown Los Angeles. Farmers expanded to acquire New World Life Company of Seattle and became the first major insurance organization to offer a monthly payment plan that didn’t charge customers any interest. In 2021, Farmers completed an acquisition of MetLife’s home and auto business.

Farmers was the first U.S.-based insurance carrier to sign the Principles for Sustainable Insurance pledge, which is a collaboration between the United Nations and global insurance companies to advance sustainable practices across the industry. The UN called this pledge “a landmark step in advancing sustainable insurance thinking and practices across a range of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues such as climate change, nature and biodiversity loss.”

Resources & Methodology

Sources:

Farmers Insurance. “Available Insurance Discounts.” Accessed December 2022.

S&P Global Market Intelligence. “2022 US Auto Insurance Market Report.” 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.

United Nations Environment Programme – Finance Initiative. “Farmers Insurance Exchange Becomes First U.S. Insurer to Sign the U.N. Principles for Sustainable Insurance.” Accessed December 2022.

Methodology

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:

  • 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)

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Laura Longero
Executive Editor

 
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Laura Longero is a content strategist and communications leader with more than 15 years of experience in content development in journalism, marketing and communications for start-ups to global companies. She started her career as a reporter and editor and honed her journalistic skills at the USA Today Network, working in several roles, as well as managing content and writing at MoneyGeek and XYZ Media.

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