Nationwide is the No. 7 company in Insure.com’s 2023 Best Insurance Companies home insurance survey with 3 stars out of 5. The company has many policy offerings and competitive rates.
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.
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Nationwide lands in the middle of the pack for most categories in Insure.com’s Best Home Insurance Companies list for 2023. Overall, it was ranked at No. 7 with a customer satisfaction score of 81%, and 84% of customers recommending the company in the survey.
A big company with many policy offerings, Nationwide’s home insurance rates aren’t the lowest, but they are still cheaper than many competitors.
Nationwide offers coverage in most of the country, although it hasn’t quite lived up to its name yet, and is a one-stop insurance shop for everything from home to pet insurance. That makes it a good choice for homeowners who want to keep everything in one place, and its average auto and home bundling discount is 22%.
It also offers a good list of discounts, even though Insure.com’s insurance consumer survey respondents scored it lower than competitors for discount options. With an A+ rating from AM Best, it’s a financially secure company.
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, including an explanation of our survey scores.
Nationwide’s home insurance rates are a bit above the national average of $2,433 but below some competitors, like American Family. However, rates are far from the cheapest, with Allstate coming in several hundred dollars lower.
Our survey found that 81% of Nationwide customers score it highly for customer satisfaction, but many ranked companies did better. State Farm had the top score.
Nationwide scored just a little below the 819 average in J.D. Power’s overall home insurance satisfaction survey, outpacing Farmers and Allstate but well below State Farm and Travelers.
Our survey found that 81% of respondents are happy with the policy offerings from Nationwide. That score put it in the bottom half of companies in the survey. Travelers, which led this category, had 10 percentage points on Nationwide.
Nationwide didn’t score highly for ease of service, with only 75% of customers saying they’re satisfied or highly satisfied. Travelers led this category.
According to our survey, 84% of respondents said they’d recommend Nationwide to others. State Farm led this category. Most surveyed companies had percentages in the 80% to low 90% range.
Despite being well-known, Nationwide didn’t score as well as some companies when customers were asked about trust. In our survey, just 63% of Nationwide’s customers who responded said they trust the company. But no ranked company had more than an 83% in this category – which was led by State Farm.
Yes, 84% of Nationwide customers surveyed plan to renew their home insurance; however, that puts Nationwide in the lower half of this survey category. Travelers led here, with 97% of customers planning to renew.
Nationwide was in the middle of the pack for claims handling. Liberty Mutual, which isn’t ranked, had the highest score in this area, followed by Allstate. However, J.D. Power gives the company a rating of 878/1,000 for claims satisfaction, which is above the 871 average.
Nationwide offers a good range of discounts, including multi-policy, home purchase and protective devices. Even with the variety of discount options, customers rated it toward the middle of the pack.
Nationwide was founded as the Farm Bureau Mutual Automobile Insurance Company in 1926. The company is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, and employs thousands in offices across the country. The company changed its name to Nationwide in 1955 to better align with its growth across America. Nationwide has grown to own 57 smaller subsidiary companies specializing in financial and insurance products.
Nationwide Insurance. “Homeowners insurance discounts.” Accessed December 2022.
Nationwide Insurance. “Insurance & protection.” Accessed December 2022.
Nationwide Insurance. “Nationwide’s corporate history.” Accessed December 2022.
J.D. Power. “2022 U.S. Property Claims Satisfaction Study.” Accessed December 2022.
J.D. Power. “2022 U.S. Home Insurance Study.” Accessed December 2022.
Insure.com in the fall of 2022 surveyed more than 1,500 people with auto, home, life and health insurance (805 with home 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 home 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.
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 used the following weights to calculate the overall score for each company:
No company in the ranking received less than 1 star in any category and 5 stars was the most any insurer could receive.