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.
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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Farmers Insurance had solid scores for home and auto bundling as well as for claims handling in Insure.com’s 2024 Best home Insurance Companies survey of insurance consumers. It ranks at No. 5 for national carriers in our list of the top insurers.Farmers – which offers home, auto and life insurance products – received 3.8 (actually, 3.77) stars. The company tends to have higher premiums than most of its competitors, according to the most recent Insure.com data, which may have hurt its star rating. Insure.com’s ranking rewards lower prices. However, it was rated highly in several areas; 82% of its customers in the survey said they’d recommend the company.Farmers received an A rating from AM Best for its credit rating, which means it’s financially stable, and a J.D. Power score of 800 (out of 1,000) for overall satisfaction.
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.
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.
Farmers rates are on the high end compared to many other big companies. Allstate’s rates are more than $1,000 lower, although Farmers and Progressive are on par with each other for high rates. The average rate nationwide is $2,604.
A few companies scored lower than Farmers for customer satisfaction, but the company’s score was quite low. The winner in this category was Erie at 89%, but no company broke 90% in the 2024 survey. Farmers was also below the average of 819 in J.D. Power’s home insurance satisfaction survey.
For policy offerings, 71% of Farmers’ respondents reported satisfaction with the company’s policy selection. In this category, several competitors scored in the 80s, putting Farmers on the lower end. Erie won the category at 86%.
Like the other main categories of customer satisfaction, Farmers’ score was on the low side for ease of service. American Family topped this category at 89%.
Of the Farmers customers surveyed, 82% said they’d recommend the company. That was the lowest score among the ranked companies, likely reflecting the lower satisfaction ratings in key areas. At 95%, Erie won this category.
Farmers finished in the lower half in this survey category. At the top of the category, among ranked companies, were American Family (89%) and State Farm (83%).
Farmers, with a score of 87%, has a higher renewal rate than some of the satisfaction categories would indicate. However, only a few companies had lower scores, with many in the 90s on this metric. Erie topped the list at 97%.
For claims handling, Farmers scored in the middle with a score of 70%. Only two companies score above 80% in this category: overall winner Erie at 92% and Allstate at 83%. Farmers’ J.D. Power 2023 Property Claims Satisfaction Study is just below average at 873, better than Allstate.
When asked to pick the top three categories in which their company is the best, 38% of customers chose digital experience as one of them. Farmers scored above several competitors here, landing in the middle. Travelers, Allstate and Progressive all tied for first at 44%.
The Farmers app is highly rated, with 4.8 stars in the Apple App Store and 4.6 stars in the Google Play store.
Among Farmers customers, 43% chose auto and home bundling as one of the three things the company is best for. Most companies scored in the 40s here, making Farmers about average, although Erie topped the list at 73%.
Discounts aren’t Farmers best area; on the survey 38% chose discounts as one of the top three. But most companies score in the 40s here, with only American Family earning more than 50% at a score of 54%.
Farmers launched from a one-room office in downtown Los Angeles in 1928, aiming to provide quality insurance at an affordable price. Farmers then expanded to acquire New World Life Company of Seattle, becoming the first major insurance provider with interest-free monthly payment plans.
Farmers Insurance provides about 19 million individual policies and recently introduced Spot, a digital dog, to help with property inspections and catastrophe claims. In 2021, Farmers acquired MetLife’s home and auto business. The company now serves more than 10 million households nationwide.
Farmers is the first U.S.-based insurance carrier to sign the Principles for Sustainable Insurance, a collaboration between the United Nations and global insurance companies to advance sustainable practices across the industry.
Sources:
Daily News. “Farmers Insurance to deploy dog-like robot for claims, inspections.” Accessed January 2024.
Farmers. “About us.” Accessed January 2024.
Farmers. “Home.” Accessed January 2024.
Farmers. “Homeowners Insurance Discounts.” Accessed January 2024.
J.D. Power. “2023 U.S. Property Claims Satisfaction Study.” Accessed January 2024.
J.D. Power. “2023 U.S. Home Insurance Study.” Accessed January 2024
Insure.com in the fall of 2023 surveyed more than 1,750 insurance consumers (1,151 people with home insurance). The survey was conducted by online market research company Slice MR.
Respondents were asked to name their home insurer and then grade it in the following categories: customer satisfaction, ease of service, 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.
Respondents were then asked to pick their insurer’s top three attributes out of more than a dozen presented – including digital experience, discounts best for auto/home bundling and best for discounts. The number of responses for each attribute were totaled before dividing 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 home insurer to someone else and if they planned to renew their policies. 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 measure 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.
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 took the following and gave each a weight.
Each insurer was awarded between half a star and 5 stars. No company in the ranking received less than half a star in any category, and 5 stars was the most any insurer could receive.