The Best Homeowners Insurance Companies 2018

If you’ve had the same insurance policy on your house for a few years, it’s time to give it a second look. Get the best deal for your dollar when you shop around regularly for the best homeowners insurance. Here’s our list of the top 10 insurance companies.

Shopping for homeowners insurance isn’t necessarily fun. But it’s something you should do on a fairly regular basis. For the most part, you should at least get quotes for new homeowners insurance once a year. You just never know when you’ll find a much better deal than the one you’re getting now.

No two insurance situations are alike, so which insurance company will be a good fit for your needs can be unpredictable. You might get a really high quote from one company while your next door neighbor gets a rock-bottom rate. That’s why it’s important to call around to several companies, even if you’re trying the ones on this list with the best pricing scores.

But price shouldn’t be the only factor, or even the primary one, when it comes to homeowners insurance. After all, this insurance is protecting what is likely your largest financial asset. And your home holds a lot of sentimental value, as well. So you definitely don’t want to leave it unprotected with cut-rate insurance from a company with low financial ratings.

So what else should you look for in homeowners insurance? Well, for one thing you’ll want to make sure the company you work with has a solid financial rating. That means it’ll be able to pay out your claim when you need it.

You’ll also want to be sure the company has the type of coverage you need. Most people do well with fairly standard homeowners insurance. But if you’re building a new home or live in a historic one, or if your situation is otherwise outside the norm, you might need some customized coverage. To check out various coverage types, read this article.

Once you understand the types of homeowners insurance, be sure that you get quotes for the same insurance coverage from each company you call.

When you’re shopping around, don’t forget to check out small, local companies in your area. But you may also want to include these top ten national companies on your to-call list.

Be Sure the Company Serves Your State

First off when we compiled this list, we did it with the understanding that not all insurance companies offer policies in every state. We chose to focus on larger national companies because they’re the most likely to serve customers in your state. But there are plenty of smaller regional insurance companies worth checking out, as well.

How We Rated The Best Homeowners Insurance Companies

As with some of our other rankings posts, we used a decision matrix to rank the companies on our list. This helps us get some clean numbers, so we’re not making a biased decision on which company is necessarily the best.

Before we ranked the companies, we took out any with a financial rating of lower than B++. Again, a solid financial rating tells you that the insurance company in question will be more likely to be able to pay out your claim in a timely fashion. We don’t want to mess around on this point, so lower-rated companies were automatically cut from the list.

Other than that original downsizing of the list, though, here are the other factors we considered:

• Overall customer satisfaction
• Policy offerings
• Price (this is a generic rating, so bear that in mind when gathering quotes)
• Billing
• Customer interaction
• Claims processing
• Mobile app rating
• Available discounts
• Financial rating

These may not be the only things you’ll want to consider as you figure out which insurer is the best fit for your needs. But they’ll give you a solid start.

Resources We Used to Find The Best Homeowners Insurance Companies

So how, exactly, did we find all this data? We actually got it from just a few places.

For the customer data, we used J.D. Power’s U.S. Home Insurance Study from 2017. J.D. Power is a well-respected company, so we trust its data. With that said, sometimes average customer data doesn’t represent everyone’s experience. So keep that in mind as you shop around for insurance.

In particular, pricing data is hard to pin down. Each company has its own risk assessments to make, and there’s really no such thing as an “average” homeowner or home. So you might get a wildly high quote from a company that generally has very good ratings on price. Again, though, price shouldn’t be your only concern. So think about all of these factors as you’re shopping for homeowners insurance.

For the mobile app ratings, we checked out the app store. If customers found the app easy to use, we gave it high ratings. If the app was nonexistent or basically worthless, it got low ratings.

On the available discounts rating, we went straight to the insurer’s websites and looked at the variety of discounts they offer. More discounts meant a better rating.

Finally, the financial ratings for this matrix came from A.M. Best. Multiple companies do rate insurance providers. But we decided to stick with one metric for our purposes. This score didn’t carry a ton of weight, either. That’s because we cut out all the lowest-rated companies from our list altogether. An A++ rating from A.M. Best is great, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider companies with a solid A rating. So we didn’t want to over-weight this criterion.

There you have it. That’s how we rated the insurance companies in question and how we got the data to do these rankings. Now without further ado, here are our top homeowners insurance companies for U.S. homeowners.

Our Top Three Homeowners Insurance Companies

1. Allstate

Allstate is a great if you’re looking for a variety of coverage options. The company has a highly-rate mobile app and received above average marks for policy offerings and billing on the J.D. Power study. We like Allstate’s option to bundle home and car insurance, especially for a discount. Speaking of discounts, Allstate lists 8 of them on their website for home insurance including a discount for up to 10% just for switching to Allstate and up to 10% for homeowners over the age of 55 or retired. You can also get up to 15% off with the safe home discount for having protective devices like smoke detectors and a security system.

So if you want plenty of policy options to choose from, want to take advantage of a discount and value timeliness and accuracy when it comes to your statements and payment process, Allstate is one you want to check out.

2. Liberty Mutual

Liberty Mutual also allows you to bundle your car and home insurance. You’ll find a variety of available discounts listed on Liberty Mutual’s website though you’ll have to speak with a rep to find out exactly how much you could save.

Additional coverage options include Home Protector Plus to pay for unforeseen costs when rebuilding your home or replacing personal property and coverage for valuable art, jewelry and even camera equipment. Another interesting option is Inflation Protection–automatically adjusting your coverage limits at renewal time to keep up with inflation.

With a highly rated mobile app and the option to receive a quote online in minutes, Liberty Mutual deserves a look.

3. USAA

USAA always has top marks for customer interactions, claims, and pricing. Unfortunately, it’s only available to those who are in military-connected families. Still, if you can get homeowners insurance through USAA, it’s typically a no-brainer.

One interesting thing about this company is that it recently rolled out a simplified homeowners insurance program. This restricted deductible options, simplified liability coverage, and basically streamlined homeowners insurance options. This means that if you opt to work with USAA, you’ll need to talk with them in detail about the coverage you need, especially to extend coverage to a secondary residence or rental residence.

USAA starts with lower prices for servicemembers, but it doesn’t have a bunch of additional discounts to mess with. Many are written into your policy already. However, having multiple types of insurance through USAA will reduce your rates with them.

The Top 10 Homeowners Insurance Companies

1. Allstate

Of course, Allstate is a staple of American homeowner insurance, and for good reason. It gets middle-of-the-road customer service ratings, but it’s got a great app and a wide variety of insurance coverage options. For instance, it offers a green improvement reimbursement that can replace damaged items with more energy-efficient ones after a claim. It even offers coverage for electronic data recovery and landscaping.

2. Liberty Mutual

Liberty Mutual scored particularly well for its mobile app and online interface, both of which are easy to use. It also has a variety of discounts available and a strong financial rating. Liberty Mutual also offers additional options like inflation protection, which will adjust your coverage limits to account for inflation in your home’s value or replacement costs.

3. USAA

Again, USAA insurance has limited availability, but it’s always best in class for both price and customer service. And with an A++ rating from A.M. Best, you really can’t go wrong. If you qualify for USAA insurance, you would be silly not to at least get a quote from them.

4. State Farm

If you need a flexible insurance policy that’s highly customizable, especially for a property like a farm or a ranch, State Farm is a good place to begin. State Farm has really good overall customer satisfaction and a wide variety of policy offerings. It typically ranks well on affordability and the claims process. State Farm’s app even lets you check on your policy, pay your bills, and make claims from your phone. We also listed State Farm in our best car insurance companies guide and you can get a discount if you bundle your car and homeowners insurance.

5. Chubb

Chubb is an interesting option if you need an insurance policy for a historic home, as it has an extended replacement cost policy. This will pay out more than your home is worth if necessary to restore it to its original specifications, even if that makes for a very expensive rebuild. Chubb also provides complimentary home appraisals during the insurance process to ensure you’re getting the right amount of coverage. If you have a very expensive home, you might get a quote from Chubb, since higher-market homes are their specialty. Its policies also include white glove services like identity theft and fraud protection.

6. Erie Insurance

Erie Insurance consistently ranks well for overall satisfaction and customer service. It also gets good marks for the number of policy offerings it has. If you really need a mobile app to manage your insurance, though, it doesn’t offer one yet. It does, however, specialize in guaranteed replacement cost insurance, which leaves homeowners more protected, especially for homes with more expensive-to-replace features.

7. Cincinnati Financial

Here’s another lesser-known company on our list, but it has decent reviews for overall customer satisfaction and excellent reviews for its claims management process. It also has the best possible financial strength rating. So it’s definitely worth checking out if its coverage is available in your area.

8. American Family

As with some of the other companies at this point on our list, American Family is in the middle of the pack when it comes to customer satisfaction. But it has good prices and some excellent online tools, including this one to help you customize your coverage.

9. Nationwide

Customers seem to agree that Nationwide actually is on their side, since they get decent reviews for customer satisfaction and their claims process. The company also has a variety of discounts available to its customers as well as a variety of ways to customize your policy.

10. Farmers

This insurer’s mobile app has great reviews online. Like other companies, it offers a variety of policy types, but it doesn’t have any particular niche specialty. It does have a variety of online tools and articles to help you sort through insurance terms and figure out what you might need.

Best Homeowners Insurance For:

Military Members: USAA

If you’re a military member or otherwise qualify for USAA insurance, get a quote. Their customer service ratings are consistently wonderful, and they are also known for their low rates.

Rural Homeowners: Nationwide

If you own a rural home with some acreage or even a small farm or working ranch, you may need particular coverage for things like outbuildings, barns, tractors, or other equipment. Nationwide offers an insurance package specifically for situations like this. You may be able to get similar coverage from other providers, but Nationwide is set up to work with you from the start.

Online Shoppers: State Farm

Many homeowners insurance companies still need you to call an agent to even get a ballpark quote. That can be annoying if you’re trying to shop around on your lunch break. State Farm has a great personalized online quote system you can trust. You’ll still want to shop with others, but State Farm will give you an easy quote online right away.

Home-Sharing Hosts: Allstate

Allstate is the first major insurer to offer additional coverage for home-sharing hosts like those that use Airbnb or HomeAway. Their HostAdvantage policy can get you additional coverage for as little as $50 per year, though your costs may vary.

Any one of these companies would make a great choice. It should also help to remember that your best choice today may not be your best choice next year and that’s okay. If you find a better quote in a few months or even a couple of years down the road, make the leap and go for the deal that’s going to save you money without sacrificing coverage.

Topics: Insurance

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