Top Homeowners Insurance Companies
In the world of insurance companies the biggest isn't always the best. In fact many of the smaller companies will give you better service because they're hungry for your business, so you should always check a company's ratings before you purchase their insurance.
There are a number of ways to judge a homeowners insurance company - financial ratings, customer service, claims experience. And there are a number of websites where you can get information about them.
Here are three of the better websites that rate insurance companies.
A.M. Best (ambest.com)
A.M. Best rates insurance companies based on three criteria: 1. Financial strength - a company's ability to pay claims. 2. Credit worthiness - a company's credit rating. 3. Indebtedness - a company's ability to pay it's security holders (debtors and stockholders).
This is a good website to visit if you want to know how strong a company is financially, but if you want to know how a company rates with it's customers then you need to go to ...
J.D. Power (jdpower.com)
J.D. Power rates companies based on: 1. Overall experience - how customers are treated by the company. 2. Policy offerings - how customers liked the company's policies. 3. Pricing - how customers rated the price of their policies. 4. Insurer contact - how customers rated their experiences with their agent or call center representative.
This is a great site to find out how customers liked various aspects of an insurance companies service, policies, and prices. But it doesn't tell you how many complaints a company has received. To get that information you need to go to ...
Your State's Department of Insurance Website
All States have a Department of Insurance website and most of those sites list the complaints that have been filed against insurance companies. To find your state's website, do an Internet search for: "(your state) department of insurance."
If your state doesn't list company complaints, you can go to the California Department of Insurance website - www.insurance.ca.gov - to get this information.
Bottom Line
Like many of the Katrina hurricane victims, you don't want to find out your insurance company won't pay your claim when you need it, so use the websites above to check out your company to make sure they're stable, reputable, and will pay your claims.
Visit http://www.LowerRateQuotes.com/homeowners-insurance.html or click on the following link to get insurance quotes from top homeowners insurance companies in your area and see how much you can save. You can get more homeowners insurance tips by checking out their "Articles" section.
The author, Brian Stevens, is a former insurance agent and financial consultant who has written a number of articles on finding top homeowners insurance companies.