In this Review: Our Take | Pros & Cons | Cost & Discounts | Coverage | State Availability | Customer Reviews | Our Conclusion | Comparison | Company Information | FAQs | Methodology
You may think all of the hard decisions have been made after you purchase your home. But you aren’t finished yet. Even though it’s not required in all states, you need to look into homeowners insurance, which can protect your most valuable asset in the case of disaster or burglary.
There are a wide variety of home insurance companies, and not all are equal in terms of coverage, cost, and availability. The This Old House Reviews Team has created this extensive Hippo home insurance review to help you determine if it’s the best choice for your home.
To get home insurance quotes in your area, call 855-948-5219 or enter your zip code in our free quote tool:
Our Take on Hippo Insurance
Hippo Insurance joined the home insurance industry in 2015 with a modernized, all-digital approach. Hippo is not an insurance carrier but a managing general agency, or MGA.
MGAs manage the price and claims experience, but other carriers pay the capital requirements. Hippo works with TOPA Insurance and Spinnaker Insurance to provide homeowners insurance coverage.
Hippo offers extremely extensive coverage, including all basic protections in addition to optional add-ons like service line coverage and water backup coverage—at no extra cost. Hippo’s discounts are also comprehensive.
We gave Hippo home insurance a score of 88.80 out of 100 on key metrics like coverage, customer service, and more.
However, despite being an exclusively online home insurance company, Hippo doesn’t offer online claim filing or tracking.
While there are both positive and negative reviews on its Better Business Bureau profile, common complaints note policies being unexpectedly canceled and poor customer service. Many reviews mention affordable prices, while others allude to poor communication.
Pros & Cons
Compare the advantages and disadvantages of Hippo homeowners insurance.
How Much Does Hippo Home Insurance Cost?
The exact amount you’ll pay for Hippo home insurance coverage depends on a variety of factors, including your property value and size, where you live, the coverage limits you select, the insurance deductible you choose, and more.
Discounts
Hippo offers a wide variety of discounts to customers, including:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Early bird | Discount if you purchase a Hippo policy at least eight days before your existing policy expires |
| Recent home purchase | Lower amount if you are purchasing a new home or have owned your existing home for less than one year |
| Auto insurance | Reduced cost if you or your spouse has auto insurance from any company |
| No mortgage | Pay less if the home you’re insuring does not have a mortgage |
| Homeowners association | HOA members receive discounts |
| Smart home | Pay less if you have professionally monitored burglar and fire alarms |
| Fire extinguishers | Reduced rate if you have multiple fire extinguishers |
| Storm shutters | Lower rate if you have storm shutters installed on your home’s windows |
| Gated community | Pay less if your home is located in a gated community |
Hippo Home Insurance Coverage
Hippo offers all of the industry-standard coverage, in addition to some bonus features.
Its plans are broken into three coverage levels, with each more comprehensive than the last. These are The Essentials, Our Best Value, and Expanded Protection plans.
Hippo states that the middle-tier plan, Our Best Value, is the most popular.
- The Essentials: Includes all of the basic coverages but is the least comprehensive. It offers cash value replacement only for personal property.
- Our Best Value: All of the coverage from The Essentials, plus replacement value coverage for personal belongings and mortgage payment protection.
- Expanded Protection: Most extensive coverage, with the lowest deductibles and highest limits. Includes everything from Our Best Value, in addition to higher limits of payouts.
Hippo Insurance Coverage
Here is the basic coverage included in every plan:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Dwelling | Protects the physical structure of the home, both interior and exterior |
| Other structures | Protects structures on your property that are not directly attached to your home (garages, tool sheds) |
| Personal property | Pays for stolen or damaged personal belongings in the event of break-in or covered disaster |
| Personal liability | Covers legal representation if homeowner is sued after an injury occurs to someone on their property |
| Medical payments for guests | Pays for medical costs associated with injuries to others on your property |
| Loss of use/additional living expenses | Pays for your needs if your home is unlivable due to covered disaster (renting, meals out, laundry, etc.) |
Additional Hippo Insurance Coverage
Hippo also offers a wide array of additional homeowners insurance coverage at no extra cost. Some of the options are included in the higher-tier plans automatically. These include:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Extended replacement cost | Pays up to 50% in excess of policy’s dwelling coverage limit in case of peril, protecting against depreciation |
| Equipment breakdown | Coverage for up to $100,000 for repairing and replacing appliances that are damaged or destroyed by mechanical or electrical failure |
| Home office and computer coverage | Covers up to $10,000 for a computer or home office equipment |
| Water backup | Provides up to $20,000 in protection against damage from water backup caused by sewers or drains |
| Service line | Covers cost of repairing damage to water, sewer or electric line connecting the property to the street |
Homeowners insured through Hippo can only file a claim by calling the company’s hotline. No online claim filing or tracking is available.
Hippo Home Insurance State Availability
Currently, Hippo homeowners insurance is only available in 27 states, including:
Alabama | Arizona | California | Colorado | Connecticut | Georgia | Illinois | Indiana | Kansas | Kentucky | Maryland | Minnesota | Mississippi | Missouri | Nevada | New Jersey | New Mexico | Ohio | Oregon | Pennsylvania | South Carolina | Tennessee | Texas | Utah | Virginia | Washington | Wisconsin
Customer Reviews of Hippo Insurance
Hippo Insurance is accredited by the Better Business Bureau and holds an A rating from the organization, with an average rating of 3 out of 5 stars. Here is what some customers had to say.
Paul A. said:
“After hearing about Hippo from a radio program, I immediately went to their website to see if I can save money. Not only did I save more than 1000 bucks from my previous insurance company, I have gotten better coverage and benefits from them. It was an easy process to get approved.”
Randy M said:
“Homeowners insurance prices are reasonable. The customer service is terrible. Long wait times (20 min.) trying to get customer support. Phone calls are rarely returned. They require you to use “notions” device in order to get the quoted rate. However, I never could get the device to work. Customer support would not return my calls. Finally lost my discount because of the non-working device. The device does not serve much of a purpose even if it is working. Hippo would not make any allowances for the non-working device and raised my rate two months after signing. Their business practices seem somewhat unethical to me.”
Our Conclusion
Hippo offers extensive homeowners insurance coverage, including all of the industry standards alongside a significant number of valuable add-ons. This makes the coverage not only comprehensive but flexible. Receiving a quote in one minute is also appealing to many customers. This contributed to our score of 88.80 out of 100.
However, the all-digital company’s lack of online claim filing and tracking is a considerable disadvantage. The majority of companies offer this feature for ease of use and convenience. In addition, Hippo is not available nationwide, and is an MGA, not an insurance carrier, which may concern some customers.
We recommend getting quotes from multiple providers to see how much you can save:
Hippo Homeowners Insurance vs The Competition
See how Hippo stacks up against some of its top competitors on key metrics.
Company Information
- Company name: Hippo Insurance
- Company type: Private
- CEO: Assaf Wand
- Year founded: 2015
- Headquarters: Palo Alto, CA
- State availability: 27
- BBB rating: A
- A.M. Best financial strength rating: NA
Other Homeowners Insurance Resources
FAQs About Hippo Homeowners Insurance
Our Methodology
The This Old House Reviews team is committed to providing comprehensive and unbiased reviews to our readers. This means earning your trust through transparency and having the data to back up our ratings and recommendations.
With that in mind, we created an objective rating system to score each home insurance company. Here’s what that review process looked like:
- We analyze the information on each company’s website. This allows us to determine what products and services are offered by each home insurance provider.
- We get a sample quote from the companies by either talking to a sales representative or by using the online quote tool. This tells us what a policy looks like and costs.
- We test customer service by talking to a company representative, finding out their hours of operation, and determining what technological features are available for customers.
- We update all of this information on a continuous basis, storing it in a proprietary database that allows us to compare dozens of home insurance companies against each other.
With this data, we created a rating methodology to score each home insurance company. Our rating system is a weighted, 100-point scale based on the following factors:
- Coverage (30): We rated home insurance companies higher if they offered the six main types of homeowner protection—dwelling, other structures, personal property, loss of use, liability, and medical payments to others coverage.
- State availability (7.5): Companies scored higher if they covered more states than their competitors.
- Customer service (15): This factor is based on our communications with the company representatives, as well as the companies’ claims and quotes processes, availability throughout the week, and customer service information found on their websites.
- Technology (12.5): Technology can increase the efficiency of filing and tracking home insurance claims. Companies scored higher if they had technology options like mobile apps and online chat functions.
- Reputation (20): We gauged trustworthiness based on years of experience and Better Business Bureau (BBB) ratings.
- Additional benefits (15): Companies that offered optional features, like discounts and endorsements, scored higher than competitors that didn’t.
Our Reviews team has a full-time researcher who collects and regularly updates data points from every company to help us compare them on key factors such as coverage, service, and dependability.
Ratings listed in this article are accurate as of October 2022.
To share feedback or ask a question about this article, send a note to our Reviews Team at reviews@thisoldhousereviews.com.