For as long as I remember State Farm always led the reputation pack, second only to the much smaller Amica Mutual. I understand that State Farm has had some recent leadership changes, but who would have ever believed that it would be rated lower than Allstate, Farmers and Progressive? Looks like State Farm has adopted the Sears model for customer satisfaction and corporate success,
As a one-time brief employee at a State Farm agent, I can tell you they fell too far behind on innovation and technology. They really believed clients would want to purchase insurance or interact with their agents the same way in 2015 as they did in 1995. They were wrong. The insurance industry as a whole was wrong…
Please note that 16 of the 19 companies listed sell either exclusively direct/captive or both direct and through independents. That is a stark change to 20 years ago where it was the “big 3”: State Farm, Allstate and Nationwide followed by all the other companies who sold through agents. The direct channels have slowly eroded the independent agents ability to gain market share. So, the “disintermediation” that we all feared would happen rapidly has been more of a “disintegration” of our market share. A painful, sad and slow walk to the gallows for us IA’s I’m afraid.
Not certain who they surveyed for the results but having been with USAA for years I can tell you the service is going downhill and fast. Had a recent claim denied only to have to prove to the claims department the language in their contract. By the way this was after numerous phone calls to various individuals in the organization. All of this on a 3000 dollar loss.
I’m certain they surveyed more than one person…. kinda how these overall rankings work. Notice how no company got a perfect score? Seems like USAA realized their mistake (probably after it was filtered up to more senior claims rep) and paid the claim. Not the best, but they could have continued to fight the claim and forced you to hire a lawyer.
Let me ask; after your experience, did you pull all your policies/accounts?
No but did shop them for the first time in 20 plus years. Could not find what I was after at pricing and terms that were satisfactory. Plan is to continue to shop until I find that sweet spot and then move on down the road.
The article itself says “The research that informs the RepTrak report is based on more than 2,920 individual ratings from U.S. consumers, addressing 44 nominated companies.”
Which means they surveyed less than 3,000 consumers in the entire United States. What a poor sample – give me a break!!
I’ve been a USAA customer for several years, and the service has always been top notch. They really treat you nicely when you call or interact with them.
The downside of the survey is that small regional carriers, for the most part, are excluded from the study. A regional company may have an excellent reputation for the small area they serve, but would not be large enough to include in this survey.
None of those carriers are my “go-to markets.” In fact, I enjoy taking business away from most of them and placing coverage with solid regional / mutual companies. I wont name any names here, but, in my opinion, there are much better companies than the ones on this list.
Popularity contest doesn’t take into consideration customer demographics, account sophistication, advertising budget of the respondent companies, or the fact that companies like USAA do a great job of telling their insureds how fabulous J.D. Power says they are, indoctrinating them into believing so, and when J.D. Powers polls them, they repeat-speak back what they’ve been told in the newsletters
Natiionwide will have trouble maintaining 17. They are doing so bad, they are laying off employees. That cannot be a good sign.
For as long as I remember State Farm always led the reputation pack, second only to the much smaller Amica Mutual. I understand that State Farm has had some recent leadership changes, but who would have ever believed that it would be rated lower than Allstate, Farmers and Progressive? Looks like State Farm has adopted the Sears model for customer satisfaction and corporate success,
As a one-time brief employee at a State Farm agent, I can tell you they fell too far behind on innovation and technology. They really believed clients would want to purchase insurance or interact with their agents the same way in 2015 as they did in 1995. They were wrong. The insurance industry as a whole was wrong…
Please note that 16 of the 19 companies listed sell either exclusively direct/captive or both direct and through independents. That is a stark change to 20 years ago where it was the “big 3”: State Farm, Allstate and Nationwide followed by all the other companies who sold through agents. The direct channels have slowly eroded the independent agents ability to gain market share. So, the “disintermediation” that we all feared would happen rapidly has been more of a “disintegration” of our market share. A painful, sad and slow walk to the gallows for us IA’s I’m afraid.
IAs still do control 80% of the commercial market however.
Not certain who they surveyed for the results but having been with USAA for years I can tell you the service is going downhill and fast. Had a recent claim denied only to have to prove to the claims department the language in their contract. By the way this was after numerous phone calls to various individuals in the organization. All of this on a 3000 dollar loss.
I’m certain they surveyed more than one person…. kinda how these overall rankings work. Notice how no company got a perfect score? Seems like USAA realized their mistake (probably after it was filtered up to more senior claims rep) and paid the claim. Not the best, but they could have continued to fight the claim and forced you to hire a lawyer.
Let me ask; after your experience, did you pull all your policies/accounts?
No but did shop them for the first time in 20 plus years. Could not find what I was after at pricing and terms that were satisfactory. Plan is to continue to shop until I find that sweet spot and then move on down the road.
I did contact the DOI in AZ and put USAA on notice that I was planning to pursue action. That is when things started to move towards resolution.
The article itself says “The research that informs the RepTrak report is based on more than 2,920 individual ratings from U.S. consumers, addressing 44 nominated companies.”
Which means they surveyed less than 3,000 consumers in the entire United States. What a poor sample – give me a break!!
I’ve been a USAA customer for several years, and the service has always been top notch. They really treat you nicely when you call or interact with them.
The downside of the survey is that small regional carriers, for the most part, are excluded from the study. A regional company may have an excellent reputation for the small area they serve, but would not be large enough to include in this survey.
None of those carriers are my “go-to markets.” In fact, I enjoy taking business away from most of them and placing coverage with solid regional / mutual companies. I wont name any names here, but, in my opinion, there are much better companies than the ones on this list.
…. with the exception of Hanover. I use them frequently. I overlooked them the first time through the list.
How can you base a survey on less than 3,000 people – that’s just ridiculous.
Popularity contest doesn’t take into consideration customer demographics, account sophistication, advertising budget of the respondent companies, or the fact that companies like USAA do a great job of telling their insureds how fabulous J.D. Power says they are, indoctrinating them into believing so, and when J.D. Powers polls them, they repeat-speak back what they’ve been told in the newsletters