Why we do not publish a ranking

An honest ranking of car insurers would need three things nobody publishes: claim payment rates by insurer, denial rates by claim type, and price for your exact profile. Insurers do not release the first two, and the third is unknowable without running a quote.

What most published rankings actually do is combine a survey of self-reported satisfaction, a sample of quotes for a handful of fictional driver profiles, and the writer's judgement about coverage options — then present the weighted result as a score out of five. There is nothing dishonest about that method if it is disclosed, but the score is not a measurement. Change the weights and the winner changes.

What you can do instead is check each insurer against four independent public datasets, then run your own quotes. That takes about an hour and produces a genuinely personalised answer rather than an averaged one.

1. The NAIC complaint index

This is the single most useful public number about an insurer, and almost nobody knows it exists.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners maintains the Consumer Information Source, a free database of complaints filed with state insurance departments against licensed insurers. From it, NAIC calculates a complaint index: the insurer's share of complaints divided by its share of premium.

The scale is simple. 1.00 is the market median. An insurer at 0.50 draws half the complaints its size would predict. An insurer at 2.50 draws two and a half times as many. Because it is normalised by market share, a large insurer is not penalised for being large.

Two caveats. Complaints reaching a state regulator are a small and self-selected sample, skewed toward claim disputes and cancellations. And the index moves year to year, so look at the trend across several years rather than a single figure. Even so, an insurer that consistently sits well above 1.00 is telling you something real about how disputes go.

Look it up at the NAIC Consumer Information Source, filtered to your state and to private passenger auto.

2. Financial strength ratings

A cheap policy from an insurer that cannot pay a catastrophe year is not cheap. Independent rating agencies publish financial strength opinions, and the major ones are free to search: AM Best, which specialises in insurance, plus S&P Global Ratings, Moody's and Fitch.

AM Best's scale runs from A++ downward; ratings in the A range reflect the agency's view that the insurer has an excellent ability to meet its ongoing insurance obligations. For a personal auto policy this is rarely the deciding factor among large national carriers, which generally rate well. It matters much more when you are considering an unfamiliar regional insurer, a surplus lines carrier, or a new entrant.

The related protection is your state guaranty association, which covers claims up to statutory limits if an admitted insurer becomes insolvent. Surplus lines insurers are not covered by guaranty funds, which is worth knowing before buying a materially cheaper policy from one.

3. What the market actually costs

Context helps you recognise an outlier quote. The NAIC's 2022/2023 Auto Insurance Database Report puts the national average expenditure at $1,281 per insured vehicle per year in 2023, up 19.24% from 2019, with the average written premium per insured vehicle at $1,438 in 2023 after a 14.42% single-year rise.

State variation dwarfs insurer variation in that data. Florida averaged $1,863.82 per insured vehicle. On collision coverage alone, the District of Columbia averaged $663.87 against Iowa's $312.87.

The practical use of these numbers is not to predict your premium — it is to notice when a quote is implausibly far from the market. A full-coverage quote at a fraction of your state's average usually means the coverage is not what you asked for. Check the declarations page, not the price.

4. Service model, which is a choice not a quality

Large national insurers differ less in quality than in model, and the right model depends on how you want to be served.

Captive agent networks. A local agent who sells one company's products, knows your file, and handles the relationship. Valuable if you want a person to call, if your situation is complicated, or if you prefer to review coverage face to face. Typically less aggressive on price for simple risks.

Direct-to-consumer. No agent layer; you buy and service the policy online or by phone. Usually strong on price and app quality, weaker if you want continuity with one person.

Independent agencies. Not an insurer at all, but a broker who quotes several carriers at once. Useful if you have a non-standard risk — a young driver with a violation, a classic car, a home in a wildfire zone — because they know which markets will actually write it.

None of these is better in the abstract. What you should not do is choose a model you dislike to save a small amount, then discover at claim time that the service pattern was the thing you actually cared about.

Running the comparison properly

  1. Fix the coverage first. Write down liability limits, uninsured motorist limits, comprehensive and collision deductibles, and any endorsements you want. Every quote must be for that identical configuration or the comparison is meaningless.
  2. Get at least three quotes, including one direct insurer, one agent-based insurer and one independent agency.
  3. Check each carrier's complaint index in your state at NAIC, and its AM Best rating.
  4. Ask what is not included — rental reimbursement, roadside assistance, gap coverage, OEM parts, accident forgiveness, and how the insurer handles glass claims.
  5. Ask about the claims process specifically: whether there is a 24-hour claim line staffed by adjusters, whether repair networks are required or optional, and whether the insurer guarantees network repair work.
  6. Re-run this at every renewal. Rate filings change constantly and the cheapest carrier for your profile in 2026 may not be in 2027.

One habit worth adopting: keep the previous year's declarations page. Comparing this year's renewal against last year's, coverage by coverage, is how you catch a limit that was quietly reduced or a deductible that moved.

Frequently asked questions

There is no single answer, because insurers weight rating factors differently. The cheapest carrier for a 45-year-old with a clean record in Ohio is frequently not the cheapest for a 22-year-old with a speeding ticket in Florida. That is precisely why comparing three quotes on identical coverage beats any published list.
Not directly. The index counts complaints filed with state regulators relative to market share, and complaints cover cancellations, billing and underwriting as well as claims. A consistently high index across several years is a meaningful signal; a single year's figure is not.
Shop every year; switch when the difference is material on identical coverage. Some insurers offer loyalty credits that offset a modest gap, and switching mid-claim is disruptive. But there is no penalty for getting quotes, and rate filings move enough that annual shopping is worth the hour.
Not inherently. Check the same two things you would check for anyone: the NAIC complaint index in your state and the financial strength rating. The difference is service model, not solvency.

Sources

Every figure above is drawn from the following publications. Links open on the publisher's own site.

IW

InsureWiseHub editorial team

We write plain-language explainers about U.S. insurance and cite a primary source for every number. We do not sell insurance and we are not paid by insurers. Read our editorial policy.

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