GAINSCO Auto Insurance, also known as MGA Insurance Company, sells nonstandard auto insurance through local independent insurance agencies located throughout the 8 states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia. Nonstandard auto insurance is car insurance for higher risk drivers some standard or preferred auto insurance companies won’t insure, such as newly licensed or inexperienced drivers, drivers with too many tickets or accidents, or a major driving violation (DUI, DUII, DWI, Reckless driving) or recent license suspension.
Are you the type of driver that needs a company like GAINSCO, or is there a better standard auto insurance company for you? Does GAINSCO Auto Insurance have too many customer complaints? How does GAINSCO compare to competing auto insurance companies like Progressive & GEICO? This blog post will help you answer these questions and review GAINSCO Insurance, evaluating its JD Power, AM Best, BBB (Better Business Bureau) ratings, and customer complaints over the last three years, to let you know if GAINSCO Auto Insurance has a better than average, average, or worse than average complaint record or competitive auto insurance rates.
The information in this review can help you decide if GAINSCO (MGA Insurance Company) is a good company to insure your cars or trucks. The smart insurance shopper checks their eligibility with all the major companies for the right combination of coverage, acceptable claims & customer service, and best price for them.
GAINSCO / MGA Auto Insurance Review
This GAINSCO / MGA insurance review is divided into five parts, consisting of: 1. A company overview including the GAINSCO website and how to get auto insurance price quotes, 2. The AM Best financial strength ratings for GAINSCO (MGA Insurance Company), 3. The JD Power customer satisfaction ratings and BBB rating for GAINSCO Auto Insurance, 4. the auto insurance customer complaint records for GAINSCO (MGA Insurance Company) over the last three years, 5. a review summary of GAINSCO Insurance, rating its customer complaint record as average, better than average, or below average, and the competitiveness of GAINSCO auto insurance rates.
1. About GAINSCO Auto Insurance
GAINSCO Auto Insurance was established in 1978 and headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with a regional office in Miami, FL. GAINSCO is not as old as many of the major US auto insurance companies, but a long company history does not translate into a better or more reliable company, and in my opinion, should not be a factor for consideration for any company older than twenty years. It’s relatively short company history should not make a difference to current or potential GAINSCO auto insurance customers.
GAINSCO sells nonstandard auto insurance for drivers considered higher risk by insurance companies, such as drivers with tickets or accidents, a recent lapse or no prior insurance coverage, drivers licensed less than three years, or other reasons. If you qualify for standard or preferred auto insurance with any company, it’s probably a better & less expensive choice for you than GAINSCO auto insurance. GAINSCO sells its auto insurance using a network of local independent insurance agencies with offices throughout the eight states where the company provides coverage.
According to the company website, GAINSCO currently insures autos in the following states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia. GAINSCO (MGA Insurance Company) is also licensed to operate in California, Nevada, and other states, so GAINSCO auto insurance may be available in these or additional states sometime in the future.
If you are a driver not qualifying for standard or preferred auto insurance coverage, and live in a state where GAINSCO auto insurance is available, you should check to see what coverage and rates GAINSCO can offer you. GAINSCO specializes in minimum liability auto insurance policies, but also offers policies with comprehensive and/or collision coverage, to insure your cars from theft or certain causes of physical damage.
GAINSCO Insurance Website, Getting Auto Insurance Price Quotes, & Reporting Claims
You can’t get auto insurance price quotes online from the GAINSCO Insurance website or use the site to find the contact information and locations of independent insurance agencies authorized to sell GAINSCO auto insurance near you. Customers can’t use the GAINSCO website for anything other than general company information.
You can get the location and phone number for an agent near you, to contact for an auto insurance price quote, by calling this phone number 1-866-GAINSCO (1.866.424.6726) during the following hours (Central time):
Arizona 10:00am – 7:00pm (8:00pm during Daylight Savings time)
Florida 8:00am – 5:00pm
Georgia 8:00am – 5:00pm
Nevada 10:00am – 7:00pm
New Mexico 9:00am – 7:00pm
Oklahoma 8:00am – 5:00pm
South Carolina 8:00am – 5:00pm
Texas 9:00am – 7:00pm
Virginia 8:00am – 5:00pm
GAINSCO Auto Insurance Claims Reporting
Unlike most auto insurance companies, you cannot report claims 24/7 to GAINSCO, but this is a minor inconvenience, and you should have a conversation with your agent before filing a claim.
GAINSCO Auto Insurance Claims Reporting Phone Number: 1.866.424.6726
GAINSCO claims reporting hours are Monday through Friday during the following hours (Central Time):
Arizona 7:00am – 7:00pm
Florida 7:00am – 6:00pm
Georgia 7:00am – 6:00pm
Nevada 7:00am – 7:00pm
New Mexico 7:00am – 7:00pm
Oklahoma 7:00am – 7:00pm
South Carolina 7:00am – 6:00pm
Texas 7:00am – 7:00pm
Virginia 7:00am – 6:00pm
Source: GAINSCO Auto Insurance website
2. AM Best Financial Strength Ratings for GAINSCO (MGA Insurance Company)
GAINSCO Auto Insurance (MGA Insurance Company) had its AM Best Financial Strength Rating upgraded to B++ (Good) with a stable outlook (a ratings upgrade or downgrade is not expected in the near future) on 04/29/2014, and affirmed again on 5/13/2015. The AM Best rating of “B++” is the 5th ranked rating (four ratings are higher: A++, A+, A, A-) from AM Best, and it is also the second lowest rating the AM Best website places in the “secure” category, before being placed in the “vulnerable” category.
AM Best financial strength ratings are not a measure of customer service or the quality of the claims adjusting for GAINSCO Auto Insurance (MGA Insurance Company), but an opinion about its ability to pay claims, remain financially solvent, and stay in business. I recommend avoiding, if possible or practical, any auto or homeowners insurance company with lower than an “A-” rating for financial strength from AM Best. However, when it comes to the higher cost of nonstandard auto insurance in general, consumers often make their choice of company based on the lowest rates.
Source: GAINSCO / MGA Insurance Company AM Best Rating
3. GAINSCO Auto Insurance JD Power Ratings, BBB Ratings, & Online Complaints
JD Power Customer Satisfaction Ratings
GAINSCO Auto Insurance, like many other smaller insurance companies operating in a few states & focusing on a specialty line, like nonstandard auto insurance, does not have enough customers at this time in any one state, region, or nationally to be included in any of the recent annual JD Power insurance customer satisfaction studies, which evaluate the largest national and regional auto or homeowners insurance companies in the USA. Not being included in a JD Power insurance study does not make GAINSCO better or worse than larger JD Power rated companies or better-known brands, but it does make it harder to objectively evaluate the quality of customer service provided by a company not rated by JD Power, like GAINSCO Auto Insurance.
Better Business Bureau (BBB) Rating
GAINSCO has the third highest rating of “A-” from the Better Business Bureau, and it is not accredited by the BBB. GAINSCO had 23 BBB complaints in the last three years, with 12 occurring in the last 12 months. 15 complaints were for the category of a problem with service, 7 complaints were for billing / collections issues, and 1 complaint was for advertising / sales issues. The reason for a lower rating is explained by the BBB as due to a lack of response by GAINSCO to a single customer complaint. However, per the BBB, the number of complaints based on the business size is a positive factor. According to the BBB website, GAINSCO failed to resolve one complaint, made a good faith effort to resolve 10 complaints, and did not respond to one complaint.
Although customer complaints are best directed toward a customer’s state department of insurance, the Better Business Bureau is a well-known and popular choice for consumers filing complaints against companies. If many customers are having difficulty resolving an issue with their insurance company and take the time to contact the Better Business Bureau about it, it’s a pretty good sign customers in general may be unhappy with the service provided by their insurance company. If a lot of complaints are made to the BBB about a company, in greater numbers than similar-sized insurance companies, it’s reflected in the BBB rating, and is one indicator the company may have more dissatisfied customers than some of its competitors. I don’t consider an A+ BBB rating to be a reliable indication of a good insurance company, but a lower than “A” rating should be considered as a sign of below average customer service. The “A-” rating from the BBB for GAINSCO & its customer complaint response should be a concern for its customers or potential customers.
Source: BBB ratings for GAINSC0, Inc.
Online customer reviews of GAINSCO Auto Insurance
The site with the largest number of customer feedback for GAINSCO I could find, Creditkarma.com, shows 36 customer reviews for GAINSCO auto insurance, and rates the company one out of five stars.
However, negative customer reviews can be found for most insurance companies on various websites, and usually are not useful in comparing companies to find better service. Nonstandard auto insurance companies like GAINSCO are known to have a lot of service complaints which may or may not be the fault of the company, and even companies like Allstate, Farmers, American Family, Nationwide, Progressive & GEICO, insuring a wide variety of preferred risk, standard risk, and some nonstandard risk drivers, have many online complaints, that it’s hard to tell which companies may be better than others.
CreditKarma.com has customer reviews for many auto insurance companies, but the opinions of a handful of customers is not a reliable indicator of the quality of a company’s claims & customer service. For example, GEICO has 90 reviews on CreditKarma.com, but the opinions of 90 out of hundreds of thousands customers are not trustworthy to represent the consensus opinion of most of its customers. This is why I prefer to use the insurance company complaint statistics in Section #4 of this review below, to help determine if an auto insurance company has a worse or better than average complaint record.
4. GAINSCO Auto Insurance Complaints filed with a State Agency
The most common reasons for people to file car insurance company complaints with a state insurance department are for delays in a claim payment, unsatisfactory payment of a claim, and denial of a claim.
The auto insurance complaint statistics for GAINSCO (MGA Insurance Company) listed below are calculated by the NAIC, and display the ratio of the company’s U.S. market share of closed complaints compared to its U.S. market share of premiums for a specific policy type. Complaint ratios lower than “1” have less complaints than average, and complaint ratios over “1” have more complaints than average. The lower the complaint ratio, the less complaints against the company. Ideally, you want to choose an insurance company with complaint ratios much less than 1.00 each year, over the last three years.
So you don’t have to worry about comparing complaint ratio numbers, I devised a rating system to help you identify if GAINSCO / MGA Insurance Company has a good or poor complaint record.
Here’s how I establish my auto insurance complaint ratings:
B = Better than average. Insurance companies with complaint ratios less than 75% of the average insurance company.
C = Average. Insurance companies with complaint ratios from 75% to 125% of the average insurance company. I use a minus sign (-) to indicate auto insurance complaint ratios slightly worse than average (1.01 to 1.25) and a plus sign (+) for auto insurance complaint ratios slightly better than average (.99 to .75).
W = Worse than average. Insurance companies with complaint ratios more than 125% of the average insurance company.
I prefer companies with the longest recent history of “B” ratings each year (or at least in the most recent three years). Companies with “B” or “C+” ratings are okay, too, particularly if they have less market share, with less than $100,000,000 in premiums for that line of insurance (auto or home) each year. I prefer to avoid companies with a consistently higher than average number of complaints, or with inconsistent complaint records, unless there are mitigating factors, such as very small market share.
GAINSCO has one subsidiary company insuring personal use private passenger cars & trucks in the states where GAINSCO operates:
B = Better than Average C = Average W = Worse than Average
2015 Auto Insurance Complaint Ratio = W (2.06)
2015 US auto insurance premium = $226,851,394
2014 Auto Insurance Complaint Ratio = W (3.03)
2014 US auto insurance premium = $201,903,213
2013 Auto Insurance Complaint Ratio = W (1.47)
2013 US auto insurance premium = $191,491,865
2012 Auto Insurance Complaint Ratio = W (2.02)
2012 US auto insurance premium = $188,126,000
MGA Insurance Company is available in the states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia. MGA Insurance Company has a consistently worse-than-average auto insurance complaint record each year from 2012 to 2014, but has increased its market share each year since 2012, which may indicate MGA Insurance Company has competitive auto insurance rates.
5. GAINSCO Auto Insurance Review Summary
Here’s my summary to give you the bottom line on the customer service & rates for GAINSCO auto insurance, to see if the company perform better than average, average, or worse than average.
GAINSCO auto insurance customer & claims service as measured by its 2012-2014 complaint record:
Worse than average
Although an insurance company’s complaint record can be particularly useful for identifying poor claims service & claims satisfaction, it should not be the only tool you use for choosing an auto insurance company. If you qualify only for nonstandard auto insurance, it can be very hard to find a company or subsidiary with a close to average complaint record, much less a car insurance company with a better than average customer complaint record. Remember to consider GEICO if you qualify, and buying direct from Progressive as better possible options for you, but if you are limited to the nonstandard auto insurance market, you should consider all the auto insurance companies available to you.
How does GAINSCO compare to major auto or nonstandard auto insurance companies, like 21st Century, GEICO, Progressive, National General (formerly GMAC), Infinity, The General and others? Compare GAINSCO auto insurance with over forty other companies at my home page: smartshopyourcarinsurance.com.
GAINSCO Auto Insurance Rates
For pricing, the most reliable way to know if your car insurance company charges too much is to conduct your own pricing survey, by obtaining price quotes from all the leading insurance companies in your state, to find the best company for you. However, a recent rapid increase or decrease in market share may indicate whether a company has higher or lower insurance rates for at least some people.
Based on increasing auto insurance market share, as measured by total auto insurance premiums collected by GAINSCO / MGA each year as shown in Section #4 of this review, GAINSCO may have lower auto insurance rates in at least some of the states where it operates. If you can’t qualify for standard auto insurance rates due to your driving record and live in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, or Virginia, you should check to see if GAINSCO has lower car insurance rates for you.
However, many GAINSCO customers have clean (or mostly clean) driving records, and choose the company for its competitive minimum liability insurance rates. GAINSCO specializes in selling minimum limits personal auto insurance. Andy Jordan, senior vice president of corporate marketing and business development for GAINSCO Inc. says in this Insurance Journal article, “For us it’s the customer that wants minimum state required limits of liability coverage. It doesn’t sound like nonstandard but for us, it starts there. It’s not always extremely risky drivers.”
If you are insured with GAINSCO, have a relatively clean driving record, and you are currently insured without a lapse of coverage in the last year, you are likely to qualify for standard auto insurance rates, and may be able to get a lower rate, broader coverage with higher liability limits, and better service with another auto insurance company, such as GEICO or Progressive. Even if you have had a recent lapse in coverage, you may get better service and rates with a company like Progressive.
If GEICO or Progressive do not have good rates for you because of your credit, your local agent representing GAINSCO mostly likely represents other nonstandard auto insurance companies not using credit as a rating factor, and you may want to go with an auto insurance company with affordable rates and a better complaint record than GAINSCO.
It pays to shop. You may not have your choice of companies with the best complaint records, but you can still see, among the companies willing to insure you, big variations in the prices they charge for the same coverage. In addition to GAINSCO Auto Insurance, be sure to check with GEICO, Progressive, Infinity, Mercury, 21st Century, National General, Direct General, and others.
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