Nationwide is the No. 7 company in Insure.com’s 2024 Best Insurance Companies home insurance ranking with 3.9 stars out of 5. The company has many policy offerings but higher than average 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 2024. Overall, it was ranked at No. 7 with a score of 3.9 out of 5.
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, with rates right around the national average. 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.
Nationwide’s home insurance rates are a bit above the national average of $2,604 but below some competitors, like Travelers. However, rates are far from the cheapest, with Amica and Allstate coming in several hundred dollars lower.
Our survey found that 74% of Nationwide customers scored it highly for customer satisfaction, which is on the lower end, although several companies scored in the 70s and no company broke 90%. At 89%, Erie topped this category.
Nationwide scored just a little below the 819 average in J.D. Power’s overall home insurance satisfaction survey, but many companies scored lower.
Our survey found that 77% of respondents are happy with the policy offerings from Nationwide. That score put it right around the middle; the highest score was 86% earned by Erie.
Nationwide scored well for ease of service, with 81% of customers saying they’re satisfied or highly satisfied. The highest score in this category belongs to American Family at 89%.
According to our survey, 90% of respondents said they’d recommend Nationwide to others. That’s the fourth-highest score, although Erie outscored all others at 95%.
In our survey, 73% of Nationwide’s customers who responded said they trust the company. Trust is a tough category for most insurers, but American Family took the top spot at 89%.
Yes, they do, with 92% of Nationwide customers surveyed planning to renew their home insurance, a good score, although not the best. Erie took that honor at 97%.
Nationwide also placed fourth for claims handling. Erie, the No. 1 company overall, had the highest score in this area, followed by Allstate. They’re the only two companies that broke 80%. State Farm was third with 78%.
However, J.D. Power gives the company a rating of 884/1,000 for claims satisfaction, which is above the 874 average and landed the company in third place overall in that J.D. Power survey.
When asked to pick the top three categories in which Nationwide is the best, 32% said digital experience was among them. That’s not the lowest, but lower than the top score of 44% earned by Allstate, Travelers and Progressive.
The Nationwide app is highly rated, with 4.7 stars in the Apple App Store and 4.4 stars in the Google Play store.
Nationwide customers chose bundling as one of the company’s three best attributes at a rate of 42%, about average. Erie was an outlier in this category at 73%, the next highest was American Family at 50%.
Nationwide has a big auto and home bundling discount at 22%, higher than most.
Nationwide offers a good range of discounts, including multi-policy, home purchase and protective devices. It ranked pretty well; 47% of customers chose discounts among the top three things Nationwide is best for. That’s second place behind American Family.
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.
Sources:
Nationwide Insurance. “Homeowners insurance discounts.” Accessed January 2024.
Nationwide Insurance. “Insurance & protection.” Accessed January 2024.
Nationwide Insurance. “Nationwide’s corporate history.“Accessed January 2024.
J.D. Power. “2022 U.S. Property Claims Satisfaction Study.” Accessed January 2024.
J.D. Power. “2022 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.