Has a friend or acquaintance talked to you about Primerica? Has someone representing Primerica offered to meet with you for a financial needs analysis? Has anyone tried to recruit you to join Primerica? Primerica, a multi-level marketing company, once a part of Travelers/Citigroup, became its own independent public company in 2010, and its stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. If you have never heard of Primerica, there are pretty good odds eventually someone you know will become a Primerica representative, and will want to meet with you to help you with life insurance and investments. This review will discuss Primerica, examine the competitiveness of Primerica’s term life insurance rates against other life insurance companies, and explain why it’s probably best for you to avoid Primerica and its representatives. Continue reading
2014 JD Power Auto Insurance Claims Satisfaction Ratings: Best & Worst Companies
JD Power has released its 2014 US Auto Insurance Claims Satisfaction Study. Although these annual JD Power customer surveys are great resources for consumers to use, as an objective measure of customer satisfaction, for each of the major auto insurance companies in the USA, the power circle ratings, used by JD Power to rate each insurance company, can mislead people about how well or how poorly each company performed in the survey. This review & analysis of the numerical scores for the auto insurance companies surveyed in the 2014 JD Power US Auto Insurance Claims Satisfaction Study will let you know the best & worst companies, and which highly rated companies are really performing close to average, and about the same as lower rated companies. Continue reading
2014 JD Power Life Insurance Customer Satisfaction Ratings
This year, JD Power added life insurance company satisfaction ratings to its annual 2014 U.S. Household Insurance Study, in addition to rating the major companies selling renters & homeowners insurance, including the “bundling” experience of buying property insurance from auto insurance companies, like Progressive & GEICO. I’m glad to see JD Power finally rate life insurance companies, but the wise life insurance consumer should read this review of these latest customer satisfaction ratings for many of the major life insurance companies in the USA, and resist the urge (and make the mistake) of thinking the highest rated companies will have the best rates, service, and life insurance policy for them. I use my insurance experience and knowledge of the life insurance market to critique these JD Power life insurance company ratings, and show you the smart way to use this information to make better life insurance decisions for you. Continue reading
2014 JD Power Homeowners Insurance Customer Satisfaction Ratings: Best & Worst Companies
JD Power released its 2014 US Household (Home & Renters, and starting this year, life insurance) Insurance & Bundling Customer Satisfaction Study last month. Although I think the annual JD Power customer surveys are useful, as an objective measure of auto, home, or life insurance company customer satisfaction, the power circle ratings used by JD Power to rate each insurance company, can be misleading about the real quality of the companies surveyed. This review & analysis of the numerical scores for the home & tenants insurance companies surveyed in the JD Power 2014 US Household Insurance & Bundling Customer Satisfaction Study will let you know the best & worst companies, and which companies, in spite of higher ratings, are really performing close to average, or about the same as lower rated companies. Continue reading
New York Car Insurance Reviews 2014: 20 Major Companies, their Complaint Records & Ratings
This review will show you the twenty companies insuring the most cars in New York, and ranking & rating them from best to worst, based on their national complaint statistics for 2011, 2012, and 2013, gathered by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Many people fail to check the complaint records of their car insurance companies, and are unaware of all the major companies selling car insurance in their state. The information I provide in this review not only helps you determine if your car insurance company has a good or bad customer complaint record, it helps you know about the other leading companies, so you can shop for lower rates and better service. Continue reading
Maine Auto Insurance Reviews 2014: Complaint Ratings & Rankings for 22 Top Companies
This review will show you the twenty-two companies insuring the most cars in Maine (companies with at least 1% of the Maine auto insurance market or more), and ranking & rating them from best to worst, based on their Maine auto insurance complaint statistics for 2012 and 2013. Many drivers fail to check the complaint records of their car insurance companies, and are unaware of all the major companies selling car insurance in their state. The information I provide in this review not only helps you determine if your car insurance company has a better or worse than average customer complaint record with the state, it helps you know about the other leading companies in Maine, so you can shop for the best combination of rates, coverage and service. Continue reading
Tennessee Farm Bureau Review: Auto, Home, Renters, & Life Insurance
Tennessee Farm Bureau insures more homes and automobiles in Tennessee than any other company, but how does Tennessee Farm Bureau compare to other major auto insurance companies competing in the state of Tennessee, like Auto-Owners, Nationwide, Safeco, State Farm, Allstate, Progressive, and GEICO? This review analyzes the JD Power customer satisfaction ratings, AM Best financial strength ratings, and the most recent three-year home & auto insurance customer complaint records for the Tennessee Farm Bureau companies, and compares them with major competitors to assess the quality of customer service and claims handling with Tennessee Farm Bureau. If you don’t want to read the entire review, you can skip to my review summary at the end (Section #6), to find out if my analysis concludes the auto & home insurance customer service & claims handling at Tennessee Farm Bureau is below average, average, or above average. Reading this review will help you decide if Tennessee Farm Bureau is a good choice to insure your car, home, or provide for your other insurance needs. Continue reading
California Homeowners Insurance Reviews 2014: Top 25 Companies Ranked by their Customer Complaint Records
This review will show you the twenty-five biggest homeowners insurance companies in California, covering of the CA home insurance market, ranking them from best to worst based on their California homeowners insurance complaint records over the last three years (2011, 2012, & 2013). I’ll show you the home insurance companies with the best & worst complaint records. Reading this review of the major California homeowners insurance companies can help you find the companies offering you the best coverage at the best price, as well as help you avoid the companies with consistently poor homeowners insurance complaint records each year. Continue reading
California Auto Insurance Reviews 2014: Top 25 Companies Ranked by their Customer Complaint Records
This review will show you the twenty-five biggest auto insurance companies in California, covering over 80% of the CA auto insurance market, ranking them from best to worst based on their California auto insurance complaint records over the last three years (2011, 2012, & 2013). I’ll show you the auto insurance companies with the best & worst complaint records. Reading this review of the major California auto insurance companies can help you find the companies saving you the most money, as well as help you avoid the companies with consistently poor auto insurance complaint records each year. Continue reading
Peerless Insurance Review 2014: Auto & Home Insurance
Peerless Insurance, headquartered in Boston, MA., is formerly a regional insurance company insuring autos & homes mainly in the US Northeast since 1901, and is now owned by the large national insurance conglomerate, Liberty Mutual Group. Peerless Insurance sells auto, home, & other types of property & casualty insurance, focusing on the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont, through independent insurance agencies located in communities throughout these states. Peerless Insurance insures a lot of autos & homes in the USA, but it does not have enough market share in any one state, region, or nationally, to be included in any of the annual JD Power US auto or home insurance studies. This review looks at the AM Best financial strength ratings and analyzes the most recent three-year home & auto insurance customer complaint records for the Peerless Insurance companies, and compares them with major competitors like Allstate, State Farm, GEICO, and Progressive, to help consumers decide if Peerless Insurance is a good insurance company for them. Does Peerless Insurance have a below average, average, or above average number of customer complaints? My review summary at the end (Section #6), will rate the auto & home insurance customer service & claims handling by Peerless Insurance, based on its complaint record. Continue reading
Pennsylvania Home Insurance Reviews 2014: Top 20 Companies Ranked by their Customer Complaint Records
This Pennsylvania home insurance review will show you the twenty biggest companies based on Pennsylvania home insurance market share, ranking them from best to worst based on their complaint records, and rating them to determine if each one has an above-average, average, or below-average customer complaint record over the last four years (2013, 2012, 2011, & 2010). No one wants a hassle with their home insurance company when they have a major claim. Most home insurance customer complaints reported to the state are regarding a company’s claims handling. Reading this review of the major Pennsylvania home insurance companies will not only show you all the leading companies, so you can shop and choose the best home insurance coverage at a competitive price, but it will also help you avoid the companies with consistently worse than average home insurance complaint records each year. You can skip to my review summary at the end of this review, if you don’t care about the details. Continue reading
Pennsylvania Auto Insurance Reviews 2014: Top 20 Companies Ranked by their Customer Complaint Records
This review will show you the twenty biggest auto insurance companies in Pennsylvania, covering 80% of the PA auto insurance market, ranking them from best to worst based on their complaint records, and let you know if they have an above-average, average, or below-average customer complaint record over the last four years (2013, 2012, 2011, & 2010). I’ll also show you the auto insurance companies growing or losing PA market share the fastest over the last four years, which can be an indicator of low or high auto insurance rates for the company in Pennsylvania. Reading this review of the major Pennsylvania auto insurance companies can help you shop and find the companies most likely to save you the most money, as well as help you avoid the companies with consistently worse than average auto insurance complaint records each year. Continue reading
Safety Insurance Review: Auto & Home, Condo, Renters Coverage
Safety Insurance is the third largest insurer of private passenger vehicles and the fourth largest insurer of homes in Massachusetts, but also sells auto & home insurance in New Hampshire. This review will discuss the important facts about Safety Insurance, and how it sells its insurance. This review also analyzes the JD Power customer service ratings, AM Best financial strength ratings, as well as the most recent three-year home & auto insurance customer complaint record for Safety Insurance, in comparison with major competitors like Allstate, State Farm, GEICO, & Progressive. My review will give you information to help you decide if Safety Insurance is a good choice to insure your car or home. Continue reading
JD Power Auto Insurance Customer Satisfaction Study 2014: Analyzing the Ratings & Company Scores
JD Power released its annual US Auto Insurance Customer Satisfaction Study for 2014 on June 20th, 2014. As I have noted before in my reviews of JD Power insurance studies, consumers need to consider each auto insurance company’s numerical score for the region where they reside, and not rely on the Power Circle ratings assigned by JD Power alone, to know if a company is providing better or worse customer satisfaction than its competitors. Too often, a company with a higher rating, such as a a four power circle rating (better than most), scored close enough to companies with lower ratings, such as a three power circle rating (about average), where it’s hard to say the higher rated company is really providing higher auto insurance customer satisfaction.
For example, in this 2014 study for the Florida region, Auto-Owners Insurance scored 815 points out of 1,000 possible points, and received the rating of four Power Circles (better than most). However, Progressive Insurance, in the same Florida region, scored 811 out of 1,000 points, but was rated three Power Circles (about average). An auto insurance shopper getting a price quote from Progressive Insurance & Auto-Owners Insurance, might be lured into paying more for an Auto-Owners auto insurance policy, based on its higher JD Power auto insurance customer satisfaction rating. But does a 4 point difference on a 1,000 point scale, really mean Auto-Owner’s Florida auto insurance customers are more satisfied than Progressive’s Florida auto insurance customers? I don’t think so.
This review will analyze the numerical scores for each auto insurance company in each of the 11 U.S. regions included in the 2014 auto insurance customer satisfaction study, and rank them into a category of best, better than average, average, below average, and worst, so you are not misled into thinking companies with higher ratings, but scoring about the same as lower rated companies, are better than they are. Continue reading
Better Business Bureau (BBB) Ratings for the Ten Largest Auto & Home Insurance Companies.
When deciding whether or not to buy a product or service from a business, cautious consumers check the Better Business Bureau rating for the business. Although I think there are other sources, such as the annual JD Power insurance studies, proving more useful rating information to the auto or home insurance customer, the complaint data provided by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) about major auto & home insurance companies can be another source of information to help people avoid insurance companies with too many complaints. This review will analyze the complaint data gathered by the Better Business Bureau for the last three years against the ten biggest auto & home insurance companies in the USA, and use it to show you which companies have a good, average, or bad complaint record. I’ll explain why people should not consider the BBB rating for an insurance company, and how I’ll use the number of complaints against each of the top ten companies, Allstate, State Farm, Liberty Mutual, Travelers, Nationwide, USAA, Farmers, American Family, Progressive & GEICO, to compare them and determine the companies with the best & worst complaint records. Continue reading
Reviewing Florida Home Insurance Companies for Financial Strength, Stability, & Solvency
Florida home insurance companies becoming financially insolvent is not an uncommon problem. Sunshine State Insurance Company, recently one of the 25 leading insurance companies selling new policies insuring homes in Florida, stopped selling new policies, after receiving a consent order from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (FOIR), to raise its surplus or shed its business. The FOIR consent order issued in March, came after Sunshine State reported it discovered accounting errors relating to reinsurance contracts from 2008 to 2011 that required correction. Sunshine State Insurance Company advised the FOIR that correcting the errors would negatively affect its surplus, as would fourth quarter losses. Customers of Sunshine State Insurance Company need to be concerned about the company being able to pay claims, and choosing another company to insure their home, as reported in this Insurance Journal article.
As any Florida property owner knows, finding companies to insure their homes and choosing the best insurance company, can be a challenge. The homeowners, condo, renters, or mobile home insurance companies available to them are often newer, very small companies not rated by AM Best, the most well-known company rating insurance company financial strength & solvency. If you are concerned about having substantial damage to your home covered by your insurance, particularly from a catastrophe, like a hurricane, where your insurance company may have many claims to pay, you want to do the best you can to avoid companies unable to meet their financial obligations. This blog post will discuss the issues regarding home insurance company solvency for Florida property owners, and show you one rating company that may be of great help with assessing an insurance company’s financial strength. Continue reading
Answer Financial (answerfinancial.com) online auto insurance quotes review
Auto insurance buyers may be aware Allstate purchased an online auto insurance company called Esurance a few years ago. What people may not know, is the previous parent company for Esurance, White Mountains Insurance Group, also owned an online insurance agency, Answer Financial, authorized to represent multiple insurance companies as an agent or broker, which was also included in the sale of Esurance to Allstate insurance. Answerfinancial.com is one of the few places on the Web showing you the prices for different auto insurance companies online on their site, once you complete submitting your information for the quote, instead of selling your personal information to insurance companies and agents, to e-mail or call you with auto insurance quotes. How accurate are the auto insurance rates quoted by Answer Financial? Can you rely on Answer Financial to compare the best auto insurance companies for you? Should you buy auto insurance from Answer Financial? This review will tell you about how Answer Financial quotes auto insurance, and assesses the usefulness of Answerfinancial.com to the online auto insurance shopper. Continue reading
Overstock.com is now selling insurance: auto, home, & business policies
Overstock.com, the online retailer, has established its own insurance agency, and now you can request auto, home, & small business insurance quotes through its website, and purchase policies through the same shopping cart customers use to make other Overstock.com purchases. Can you really get online insurance quotes from multiple companies from Overstock.com, and buy a policy from the Overstock.com website? Is it a good way for people to purchase insurance, or does Overstock.com offer better prices than other insurance companies or insurance agencies? I tested the “insurance” tab at the Overstock.com website to get insurance quotes, as well as researched how Overstock.com is providing insurance, and I’ll tell you the advantages, and significant disadvantages, of using Overstock.com to insure your cars and/or home. Continue reading
Walmart is selling auto insurance online?
There have been many articles this week reporting about Walmart selling auto insurance online. The article headlines about this story have often been misleading. Walmart, known for its ultra low prices, is not forming its own auto insurance company to sell car insurance at low, market-beating prices. Walmart is teaming with an online insurance agency, autoinsurance.com, to promote an auto insurance price comparison tool to compare the rates of several companies. Is this auto insurance price comparison service useful? Will it really save people money as advertised? I’ll tell you about how this new service works, and as a former auto insurance industry insider, I’ll tell you why I think you shouldn’t rely on it to find the best rates or auto insurance company for you. Continue reading
Gun Friendly Insurance Companies?
Is it true some insurance companies decline, cancel, or non-renew home insurance policies based on an applicant’s ownership or use of guns? One major home insurance company in Florida currently does use gun ownership to determine eligibility for its property insurance policies. Which home insurance companies are better for firearm owners? This blog post will explain what gun owners need to know about how insurance companies use information about you and your guns, to determine your eligibility for their home insurance policies. Continue reading
State Farm Life Insurance & Term Rates Review 2014
State Farm is the largest insurer of autos & homes in the USA by far, with lots of local State Farm agent offices in almost every community across the nation. In fact, there are TWO State Farm agent offices within a mile of my home, and over a dozen State Farm offices within 10 miles of me. State Farm is a well-known household name when it comes to insurance. But is State Farm a good choice for life insurance? State Farm may be a good choice for auto & home insurance, but as this review will show you, State Farm’s rates for life insurance are expensive, compared to other highly rated major life insurance companies. There are other drawbacks to using a State Farm agent for your life insurance. An independent insurance agent or agency, representing many life insurance companies, specializing in life insurance, is usually a better choice to find the best life insurance for your needs. The review below will explain why I think this is the case. Continue reading
Does your job or education increase your auto insurance rates?
A consumer advocacy group, New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), announced its recent analysis shows some of New York State’s largest auto insurers are charging higher premiums to motorists who have less education and non-professional, non-managerial jobs. Four major auto insurance companies were examined: GEICO, State Farm, Liberty Mutual, and Progressive. Although the analysis is of auto insurance rates in the state of New York, many states allow a customer’s education and occupation as rating factors. This blog post will discuss the results of the NYPIRG analysis for each company, and tell you what you need to know to find the best auto insurance rates for you, no matter your occupation or level of education. Continue reading
US Home Insurance Companies Rated & Ranked for 2014 Property Claims Satisfaction
JD Power home insurance customer satisfaction & property claims satisfaction studies are great tools for insurance shoppers to measure an insurance company’s claims & customer service, but people make the mistake of trusting the power circle ratings in these studies too much. You may think all four of five power circle rated companies are much better than average-scoring companies with lower power circle ratings. However, when you look at the numerical scores these companies received, many are actually not much better, or much worse than average. Some companies do outperform others, while some companies rated as average, scored far below average. Today’s blog post reviews the raw scores and ratings for the eighteen insurance companies included in the 2014 JD Power Property Claims Satisfaction Study for homeowners insurance, released earlier this year. I’ll show you the companies really performing much better or worse than average, so you can avoid the worst companies, and not pay more for a company, with the false expectation of proper service, based only on its power circle rating or brand name. Continue reading
Best & Worst Home & Renters Insurance Companies for 2013
JD Power has released its 2013 US Household (Home & Renters) Insurance & Bundling Customer Satisfaction Study. Although I think the annual JD Power customer surveys are great resources for consumers to use, as an objective measure of customer satisfaction, for each of the major residential property insurance companies in the USA, the power circle ratings, used by JD Power to rate each insurance company, can mislead people about the real quality of the companies included in the study. This review & analysis of the numerical scores for the home & tenants insurance companies surveyed in the JD Power 2013 US Household (Home & Renters) Insurance & Bundling Customer Satisfaction Study will let you know the best & worst companies, and which highly rated companies are really performing close to average, and about the same as lower rated companies. Continue reading
Best & Worst Companies for Auto Insurance Claims Satisfaction in 2013
JD Power has released its 2013 US Auto Claims Satisfaction Study. Although these annual JD Power customer surveys are great resources for consumers to use, as an objective measure of customer satisfaction, for each of the major auto insurance companies in the USA, the power circle ratings, used by JD Power to rate each insurance company, can mislead people about how well or how poorly each company performed in the survey. This review & analysis of the numerical scores for the auto insurance companies surveyed in the JD Power 2013 US Auto Claims Satisfaction Study will let you know the best & worst companies, and which highly rated companies are really performing close to average, and about the same as lower rated companies. Continue reading