Progressive is No. 7 with 3.1 stars out of 5 in the 2023 Insure.com Best Insurance Companies survey for auto insurance. Most customers say they plan to renew their policies with Progressive.
Barry Eitel is a content writer and journalist focused on insurance, small business and finance. He has researched and written about personal finance since 2012, with a special focus on entrepreneurship, freelancing and other small business operations. His writing on insurance and small business has been featured in 7x7, Brit + Co, Intuit Quickbooks, Bankrate, Policygenius and Lendio.
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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Progressive, a major insurer that covers drivers throughout the United States, ranked No. 7 in Insure.com’s ranking of the Best Car Insurance Companies for 2023 with 3.1 stars out of 5. While its average annual premiums are often higher than many competitors, Progressive provides a wide array of discounts.
Progressive gets high marks for customer satisfaction, policy offerings and renewals. It also gets high marks from AM Best for its credit rating – a measure of its financial security – earning an A+. In addition, we found it had a very respectable score of 819 out of 1,000 when we looked at J.D. Power’s customer satisfaction study.
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.
Among the top 10 companies on Insure.com’s list, Progressive’s rates were among the highest, although others were higher. And the company ranked highly for the discounts it offers. See the table below to check out how much auto insurance from Progressive costs compared with the monthly rate from some of its competitors.
When we asked Progressive customers about their satisfaction, 85% said they were satisfied with Progressive’s customer service. That’s tied with Geico and in line with many other insurers with similar nationwide reach.
Looking at another metric, Progressive’s averaged J.D. Power score of 819 is just a bit lower than the overall J.D. Power customer satisfaction rating of 834 (on a 1,000-point scale) for auto insurance companies. J.D. Power grades auto insurance companies on state/regional levels – it doesn’t offer national scores. We averaged the state/regional results to see how the companies did.
Progressive scores highly in terms of how customers viewed its ease of service when it comes to accessing policy documents and services. Progressive ranked only a few points below Liberty Mutual and Allstate in our survey. Progressive tied in this category with Geico and Nationwide.
When customers ranked insurance companies by their policy offerings, Progressive scored in the middle of the pack among national insurers behind top-scorers Erie and Liberty Mutual. Progressive, however, is the top insurer for motorcycles and offers a 4% discount on bundling.
While most Progressive customers would recommend the company to others, Progressive ranked lower in this metric than some competitors – including Travelers and State Farm.
When customers were asked to rank insurance companies for trustworthiness, 73% of Progressive customers said they trusted the company. State Farm had the highest score in this category.
Progressive was rated very highly for customers who planned to renew their coverage – in fact, it had one of the highest scores in our survey.
When it comes to claims handling, Progressive scored in the second tier in our survey, just behind Liberty Mutual. Looking at another third-party metric, Progressive’s J.D. Power rating for claims is 861 out of a possible 1,000. That’s just a bit below the average of 873.
When asked about discounts, customers were extremely satisfied with Progressive’s discounts compared with its competitors. Progressive had one of the top scores in this category.
Progressive scored in the lower half of the top 10 companies in this category even though it has reasonably competitive discounts. Travelers and American Family led this category.
Progressive is known as a pioneer in the industry. It has been behind several firsts in the auto insurance industry, including writing insurance for high-risk drivers, providing concierge service to help customers find a replacement vehicle and providing in-person service and support after a claim report. It’s the third-largest auto insurance company in the U.S., with nearly 14% of the market share.
The company’s “Name Your Price” tool allows users to find coverage that will fit within their budget. Customers may be able to find a limited policy at an affordable price that other insurers don’t provide. Customers can save even more by registering in the Snapshot program and receive additional discounts for monitored and safe driving.
Insurance Business America.“Revealed – State Farm no longer the US’s largest car insurer.” Accessed December 2022.
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.
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:
In our rankings, no company received less than 1 star and no company received more than 5.