Using Car Insurance Ratings

When you insure a car, you want to feel certain that the insurance company is solvent enough to pay out on claims. So you need to check their Car Insurance Ratings. Until 2008, most people didn’t give much thought to the possibility that their insurance company could go bankrupt. Reading and researching Car Insurance Ratings will let you know just how financially strong an insurance company is, and how well their service is perceived by customers.

Two of the biggest Car Insurance Ratings agencies are A.M. Best and Standard & Poor’s. They rate, or basically give letter grades to, insurance companies based on their risk profiles, assets, liabilities, and track record. The letter grade lets you know whether you’re likely to be able to depend on that company to pay out if you make a claim, or whether the company is struggling.

With A.M. Best, ratings go in letter grades from A++, which is highest, to D. If a company is facing regulatory action due to a lack of solvency, A.M. Best assigns it a grade of E. Insurance companies with a grade of F are already in liquidation, and those with a grade of S are suspended. Stick with companies that A.M. Best deems a B+ or better.

Standard & Poor’s Car Insurance Ratings system is similar, only their letter grades range from a high of AAA to a low of CC. Companies that are under regulatory supervision because of solvency issues receive a grade of R from Standard & Poor’s, and there are some companies that, for various reasons, are not rated and are given NR (not rated) for their grade. In addition, with Standard & Poor’s, grades may have a + or a – mark added as well to tease out finer rankings among closely ranked companies. Don’t consider companies that Standard & Poor’s gives a grade below BBB.

Insurance companies often display their Car Insurance Ratings on their websites (if they’re good), but if they don’t, you can get on the A.M. Best or the Standard & Poor’s websites and run searches on specific companies.

A company called J.D. Power and Associates approaches ratings from the point of view of the consumer. The company conducts independent surveys of customer satisfaction and product quality. J.D. Power and Associates has created one of the most comprehensive customer satisfaction databases in the world for a wide variety of products and services and Car Insurance Ratings.

With car insurance companies, J.D. Power and Associates rates a long list of individual providers, and also ranks their automobile claims handling and how they are perceived by customers.

For Car Insurance Ratings, J.D. Power and Associates looks at overall experience, policy types offered, pricing, billing and payment services, and the ease of contacting the insurer. You can also see the results of an auto claims study that rated companies based on how well they handled various steps in the claims process, from the initial call to ease of getting a rental car to the settlement itself.

Comparing prices is a great place to start when selecting a car insurance company, but Car Insurance Ratings will let you know if an insurer is financially solvent, and whether customers are satisfied by their services.

Car Insurance Ratings

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Using Car Insurance Ratings

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