Liberty Mutual scores highly in multiple categories, including ease of service and trustworthiness. Most Liberty Mutual customers say they’re satisfied with the company’s policy offerings.
Michelle, the former editorial director, insurance, at QuinStreet, is a writer, editor and expert on car insurance and personal finance. Prior to joining QuinStreet, she reported and edited articles on technology, lifestyle, education and government for magazines, websites and major newspapers, including the New York Daily News.
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Liberty Mutual had a strong showing in the 2023 Insure.com Car Best Insurance Companies survey of insurance consumers, coming in close to the top in multiple categories, including ease of service and trustworthiness.
Overall, Liberty Mutual had favorable rankings compared to other auto insurance providers.
Liberty Mutual also received an A credit rating for financial stability from AM Best and a J.D. Power score of 819 for customer service out of a possible 1,000. J.D. Power grades auto insurance companies on state/regional levels – it doesn’t offer national scores – so we averaged the state/regional results to see how the companies did.
Liberty Mutual doesn’t release its rates to the public, so Insure.com’s editors didn’t have the price information needed to rank the company on its Best Car Insurance Companies 2023 list. However, the editors felt the company was worth noting.
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.
In all, 92% of Liberty Mutual customers reported customer satisfaction with the auto insurance provider. This compares with 96% of customers from Travelers and Erie and 91% from State Farm, giving Liberty Mutual a solid score for customer satisfaction.
Liberty Mutual’s J.D. Power rating was 819 (on a 1,000-point scale) for auto insurance companies in 2022.
Liberty Mutual took the cake for ease of service – easy access to policy documents – receiving, along with USAA, the highest rating of all auto insurance providers in Insure.com’s survey at 92%. Liberty Mutual received higher rankings than its close competitor, Allstate, at 88%.
Liberty Mutual again was a top pick for policy offerings, where it scored a high 90%. USAA led this category with 96% of its customers giving it a high mark. But Liberty Mutual was a solid third, only one percentage point behind Erie Insurance at 91% in our survey. Liberty Mutual ranked higher than other auto insurers, including State Farm, Allstate and Travelers, on this metric in our survey.
Finally, 90% of Liberty Mutual customers said they’d likely recommend it to others. Most companies scored in the 90th percentile in this category.
Opposite the recommendation category, most companies in the “most trustworthy category” received scores in the 70th and 80th percentiles. Liberty Mutual’s rating for trustworthiness was stellar, with the company ranking close to the top, proving that customers found the company to be honest and transparent.
Yes, 88% of its customers said they would renew their policies. But more than a few auto insurance companies in the survey outranked Liberty Mutual.
For claims handling, Liberty Mutual customers gave it a rating of 53%, which was a lower score than competitors Allstate and Geico. Auto-Owners scored below average on J.D. Power’s claims satisfaction survey at 870/1,000.
Although Liberty Mutual has high ratings in many other categories, there were many other auto insurers, including State Farm and Progressive, that had higher scores from survey respondents in this category.
Liberty scored in the lower half of our survey in this category. But it should be noted only a few companies, such as State Farm, did well in this area.
Some of the affinity for the company could come from its employees who participate in the company’s Torchbearer program and donate their time and resources to various causes, like fighting food insecurity.
When Liberty Mutual launched more than 100 years ago, in 1912, it was eight more years before it offered its first auto insurance policy. Liberty Mutual’s first home office was in Boston.
In addition to offering auto, property, business and life insurance, Liberty Mutual helped to create an emergency stop switch for escalators and the first battery-powered prosthetic elbow. It expanded to the United Kingdom in 1973, its first location outside of North America. Safeco Corporation became part of its business in 2008 and, more recently, Liberty Mutual also launched its Solaria Labs.
Known for its slogan “Only Pay for What you Need,” Liberty Mutual is available in 29 countries worldwide and is the sixth-largest casualty and property insurer in the world. The company, which has a venture capital arm as well as a lab and global team to develop new products, was included among 100 “Companies that Care” in 2022 by People magazine.
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.
Liberty Mutual. “Auto and Vehicle Insurance.” Accessed December 2022.
Liberty Mutual. “Car Insurance by State.” Accessed December 2022.
Liberty Mutual. “Car Insurance Discounts.” Accessed December 2022.
Liberty Mutual. “Liberty Mutual at a Glance.” Accessed December 2022.
Liberty Mutual. “Types of Insurance Coverage for Your Car.” 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 A.M. 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: