Nationwide, which ranks high for cheap rates and claims service, came in at No. 5 in Insure.com’s ranking of the Best Car Insurance Companies for 2023 with 3.5 stars out of 5.
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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Nationwide is ranked highly for its cheap rates, renewals and claims satisfaction.
Overall, Nationwide auto insurance came in at No. 5 in Insure.com’s ranking of the Best Car Insurance Companies for 2023 with 3.5 stars out of 5.
Nationwide’s rates are consistently lower than most of the companies in our survey – although it isn’t among the best for discounts. But it’s a big company offering many different policy options, making it a good choice for one-stop insurance shopping.
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.
Nationwide has low rates compared to other companies in our survey with a national average cost of $1,190 a year, or $120 a month. That makes Nationwide the cheapest car insurance company out of the top 10 insurers in our ranking.
Nationwide wasn’t among the top companies for customer satisfaction. Still, 84% of the Nationwide customers in our survey said they were satisfied or highly satisfied with the company. Another satisfaction metric to consider is J.D. Power. The company doesn’t rate auto insurance companies on a national level for overall satisfaction, so we averaged out the company’s rating across all regions. Nationwide scored 815/1,000, which was just a bit below the category’s average of 834.
Eighty-seven percent of customers said they were satisfied or highly satisfied with the ease of getting service from Nationwide. It was in good company – Geico, Progressive and Erie all came in with 87% in this category, which measures ease of accessing policy documents and services.
Eighty-four percent of customers surveyed said they were satisfied with the company’s offerings. Most companies in our survey were in the 80-90 percentile range.
Customers would overwhelmingly recommend Nationwide to their friends and relatives. In the survey, 95% of current customers said they’d recommend the company to others. That wasn’t the top score in the survey, but still quite high, matching market-share leader State Farm.
We asked customers to tell us how they felt about the statement, “I trust my insurance company.” Sixty-five percent of Nationwide customers said they could trust the company, which was among the lower scores in this survey category.
Nationwide customers do plan to renew with the company. Of the current customers in the survey, 97% said they would re-up with the company – one of the highest scores in the survey.
Of the top 10 companies in our ranking, Nationwide had the highest rating for claims handling. However, Amica was the winner of J.D. Power’s claims satisfaction survey. Nationwide scored 868/1,000 on that survey, just below the industry average of 873.
Nationwide ranked first in our survey for digital experience, which includes the company website and mobile app. However, not all companies in our survey had enough responses in this category for the editors to rank them.
In the Apple store, Nationwide customers rate the app 4.8 stars out of 5. It’s less well-rated in the Google Play store, at 4 stars out of 5.
Nationwide’s customers didn’t often say it was best for discounts. However, thanks to low base rates, Nationwide may still be a very affordable pick, even without a lot of discounts.
Nationwide was founded in 1926 and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. The company has more than 25,000 employees and is in the top hundred of the Fortune 500 list. Nationwide owns many subsidiary companies across the insurance market, offering just about every type of insurance.
Nationwide products are sold directly or through independent insurance agents.
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.
Nationwide. “Car insurance quotes by state.” Accessed December 2022
Nationwide “Full coverage insurance.” Accessed December 2022
Nationwide. “Auto insurance discounts.” 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 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: