Which Insurance Company Is Best at Paying Claims?

The claims process is one of the most important factors to consider when looking for a home insurance company. There’s no point in buying homeowners coverage if your provider isn’t likely to approve your claim or cover damages.

To help you determine which insurance company is best at paying claims, the This Old House Reviews Team created a guide focused on claims handling. The guide uses surveys from J.D. Power and Consumer Reports. Real customers were asked about their claims experiences with the nation’s top homeowners insurance companies.

To compare homeowners insurance rates from providers in your area, call 855-948-5219 or enter your information into our free quote comparison tool.

J.D. Power compiles customer feedback to help people make informed decisions when purchasing products and services. Take a look at the home insurance companies that ranked the highest in its 2022 report for customer service and claims processes. 

AM Best Ratings for J.D. Power’s Top 5

AM Best scores companies on financial stability. While this is not a direct metric of your experience while filing a claim, it offers a strong data point on any given provider’s claims-paying ability. Should a disaster happen in your area, a company with a stronger AM Best rating will likely cover your necessary repairs.

Here are the AM Best ratings for the five companies listed above. These ratings are accurate as of August 2023.

The best possible rating with AM Best is A++, and nearly all five providers came close with an A+. Farmers is the only insurer to hold an A rating, which still signals strong financial stability consumers can count on.

Here are the home insurance companies that ranked the lowest for claims satisfaction, according to J.D. Power and their AM Best ratings.

Every year, J.D. Power conducts a U.S. Property Claims Satisfaction Study scored on a 1,000-point scale that examines home insurance customer satisfaction based on five factors:

1. First notice of loss
2. Repair process
3. Estimation process
4. Claim servicing
5. Settlement

AM Best rates insurance companies and similar business entities to help you understand providers’ financial strength, creditworthiness, and ability to meet policyholder needs. Its rating methodology is based on the following factors:

1. Balance sheet strength
2. Operating performance
3. Business profile
4. Enterprise risk management

The claims process isn’t the only factor you should look at when looking for homeowners insurance. Here are some other factors to consider before buying a home insurance policy:

• Personal Information: Certain factors about you will be used to determine the cost of your premium. For example, if you have a low credit score, a history of filing a lot of insurance claims, or a pet with a history of aggression, you may pay more for home insurance coverage.
• Property Information: If you’re farther than five miles from a fire station, live in a neighborhood with a high level of crime, or live in a state that’s susceptible to natural disasters, your insurance rate will be higher.
• Discounts: If you’re looking for ways to save money on your policy, research companies that offer multiple discounts. Most insurance providers offer discounts for bundling home insurance with another policy like life insurance or renters insurance, being claims-free, and having safety features in your home. Other companies, like Allstate and Liberty Mutual, offer unique discounts including ones for having a new roof or signing up for paperless billing.
• Endorsements: If you want more than dwelling, other structures, personal property, loss of use, liability, and medical payments to others coverage, you can typically purchase additional coverage in the form of endorsements. Endorsements vary by company, but common ones include coverage for earthquakes, identity theft expenses, personal property replacement costs, and valuable personal property.
• Customer Service: If you like to talk to company representatives on the phone, consider a company that offers 24/7 customer service or at least a claims center that’s open 24/7. If you prefer to manage your policy yourself, choose a company that has technological features, like a customer portal and mobile app, so that you don’t have to talk to a representative.

Best Homeowners Insurance Companies

When ranking the best homeowners insurance providers, the This Old House Reviews Team looked at customer service, discounts, state availability, coverage options, and more.

These are the companies that received the highest ratings from our team:

• Lemonade: Easiest Sign-Up
• Liberty Mutual: Best Discounts
• State Farm: Best Endorsements
• Nationwide: Best Standard Policy
• Allstate: Best Coverage Options
• USAA: Best Membership Perks
• Travelers: Most Experience
• Farmers: Most Customizable Coverage
• Amica: Best Customer Service
• Erie: Best Value

Amica and Auto-Owners received high scores from J.D. Power and Consumer Reports. The providers tout efficient claims processes, fast response times, reasonable payment, and friendly customer service representatives.

Use the zip code tool below to compare quotes from these companies and determine which is best for you.

• What is Homeowners Insurance?
• Is Homeowners Insurance Required?
• How Much Does Homeowners Insurance Do I Need?
• How Can I Lower My Homeowners Insurance?
• Which Insurance Company is Best at Paying Claims?
• What Does Homeowners Insurance Cover?
• What is Loss of Use Coverage?
• Homeowners Insurance in Fire Prone Areas
• Is Earthquake Insurance Worth It?

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.

AM Best Disclaimer

To share feedback or ask a question about this article, send a note to our Reviews Team at reviews@thisoldhousereviews.com.