Want to know if that lower insurance premium is worth it? Want to know if that good deal is from a good company, or just the latest come-on from a disreputable insurance company looking to take you for a ride?
Here’s how to find out if the insurer does a good job of paying out claims.
State insurance departments keep records of complaints against insurers, and you can get the details at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners website.
At that site, you can search by company name, state and type of insurance(property/casualty for home owners and auto insurance). Once you have the listings for the company, state and type of insurance, select the Closed Complaint Ratio Report link.
This report displays the ratio of complaints compared to the National Median Complaint Ratio. If your company is significantly above the national ratio then there may be a problem. It may just be that the company’s market share is much larger than the average, and they get more complaints simply because they have more customers.
Here’s a result for Progressive Direct:
As you can see, Progressive Direct’s complaint ratio is 23% less than the national average.
In addition to the complaint ratio, you’ll also want to look for red flags like the number of complaints rising in the last few months. That would be a bad trend, while a decreasing number of complaints would be a good thing. You can check that by clicking on the Closed Complaint Trend Report link.
Here’s the compliant trend for Progressive Direct:
Not only is the number of complaints trending downward, but it appears that the rate at which complaints are dropping in increasing. This would seem to suggest that Progressive Direct is making a concerted effort to please its customers.
Also, check insurers record at your state insurance department for any history of enforcement actions taken.
All in all, this site makes it very easy to check up on an insurance company before you become a customer. You can see whether that great deal is being offered by a good company, or if that great deal is likely to cost you more in the end than you’re bargaining for.
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