Auto-Owners Insurance, a regional insurance company based in Lansing, Michigan, nabbed 1
st in the 2015 US Auto Claims Satisfaction Study by JD Power. Auto-Owners sells coverage in 26 states, chiefly in the Midwest and Southeast. The insurance company has consistently placed highly in the annual study, having won 2nd last year.
Auto-Owners has an old-fashioned method of handling its customers’ claims. Three-quarters of its customers are taken care of by local Auto-Owners agents instead of having customers deal with centralized call centers. Letting agents who sold the policies start the claims process builds a level of trust that leads to higher customer satisfaction marks, said Mark Garrett, JD Power director of insurance industry analytics.
Of the various companies included in the study, only Auto-Owners Insurance, at 893 points, and Amica Mutual, with 885 points, received five “power circles” (the study’s version of stars). To measure satisfaction, JD Power surveyed nearly 11,500 consumers who had auto insurance claims settled in the previous six months.
Popular national companies such as
State Farm, The
Hartford,
Travelers, and American Family usually claim the top spots. This year, however,
State Farm fell out of the top five.
State Farm claimed 3rd place last year, but it dropped to 11
th place this year.
Aside from ranking insurance companies, the study weighed the overall satisfaction levels of the customers they surveyed. The survey found that millennials (those born between 1977 and 1994) were less satisfied with the claims process than older customers. Millennials are also twice as likely as other age groups to change insurers if they aren’t satisfied with the service they received.
Garrett said younger people typically buy less expensive insurance and thus are less likely to be satisfied when they file a claim. Also, many are filing a claim for the first time and find the process more time consuming than they expected.
