5 Things You Must Know About Car Insurance Ratings

By: David Schneider, Car Insurance Expert
CheaperCarInsurance.com

If you’re shopping for car insurance, you want a company that rates high for service, satisfaction and products. You can search on Google to see what people are saying about the companies you’re considering, but there’s always a few people on both sides of the fence about any company. How can you get a real sense of how a company will treat you after you buy your car insurance policy?

Car insurance ratings.

Companies like JD Power spend a great amount of time studying car insurance companies and measuring them against certain measures of success. They then give them a car insurance rating that indicates how successful each company is in different areas.

Here are those five areas that you should makes sure your company measures up in.

Overall Satisfaction

Clearly, you want to be happy with the customer service your car insurance company provides. This includes everything from how friendly the customer service representatives are on the phone to how accessible your local insurance agent is. JD Power rates each insurance company, from the most popular to the smaller, lesser known ones, on a scale of one to five.

Currently, the companies with the highest car insurance rating have four stars:

• State Farm
• Shelter
• Country
• Erie Insurance
• Amica Mutual has 5 stars

Contacting the Insurer Obviously you want a car insurance company that is easy to reach. You don’t want to have to push a lot of buttons on your phone to reach a live person, and you don’t want to have to leave messages to get your insurance agent to call you back. The insurance website should be easy to access.

Some companies stack up better than others in this regard. A few have even ranked as practically perfect with five stars from JD Power:

• Amica Mutual (they received an award for all their high car insurance ratings)
• Shelter
• State Farm

Policy Offerings

A key component to finding a great car insurance company is finding one that has a wide range of insurance products that suit your specific needs and your budget. You want a policy that provides you ample coverage in case you are involved in a car accident, and you don’t want to pay too much out of pocket for your deductible. Extra options, like rental reimbursement and towing are nice as well.

The companies that offer the best variety of product and policy offerings car insurance rating, according to JD Power are:

• Amica Mutual
• Automobile Club of Southern California
• Country
• Erie Insurance
• GEICO
• Shelter
• State Farm

Billing and Payment

You want your car insurance bill to be accurate and easy to understand, don’t you? It should arrive on time and be easy to pay, with a number of payment options, like by check, credit card, over the phone and online.

JD Power gives high car insurance rating to these companies for their high quality billing and payment processes:

• Amica Mutual
• Automobile Club of Southern California
• California State Automobile Association
• Erie Insurance
• State Farm

Pricing

Naturally, you want all of these features plus a great rate on car insurance. Some companies may offer cheap car insurance but not the coverage you’re looking for. Seek a balance between a high level of coverage and affordable premiums.

JD Power gives kudos to these companies on their pricing car insurance rating:

• American National Property and Casualty
• Ameriprise
• Amica Mutual
• Automobile Club of Southern California
• California State Automobile Association
• Auto-Owners
• Erie Insurance
• GEICO
• The Hartford
• Shelter

Check the rating of your chosen car insurance company at http://www.jdpower.com/autos/ratings/autos-insurance.

Posted: January 21, 2010