There’s another thread on car insurance - and I thought - having insurance is one thing - but having someone who is there for you is another.
Who are the companies you’re using for home / home car. I suspect there are many unknown names.
Who has been great in claims? Who has been a nightmare and you wish you never linked (State Farm, Farmers for me), etc.
For car insurance, wouldn’t the other driver’s insurance company always be the “bad guy” from your point of view, since it is being paid by the other driver to try to avoid or minimize the other driver’s liability (and therefore the insurance expense) for a crash?
Huh, my parents always used State Farm, and that’s what we’ve always had. We’ve been very satisfied with the service.
I posted about my husband sliding our car very slowly into a guardrail during a snowstorm in January. The process has gone very well (except for the slow service, but that’s just because autobody shops are slammed and that’s not State Farm’s fault).
I had to make one phone call to State Farm, and everything was set up for me. I took the car in for an estimate on Monday. The estimate is $3,400 to repair the front fender but our deductible is only $500. When I take the car in to be fixed, Enterprise will meet me with a rental car - I don’t even have to pick it up! And note that I didn’t have to be the one to arrange this, the autobody shop did. There’s an online portal I can go to if I have any questions or concerns. I don’t know how the process could go any better.
Long answer…
We had an awesome policy that we inherited when we bought our first house. It was through Mutual Insurance of (Something). The women who had owned the house previously briefly dated an insurance person and he set her up with it. To qualify, there was a big laundry list of items the house needed to meet. The initial premium was about 10% higher they said, but after that your premiums depended on how many people had claims that year, but it was never to exceed the first year. Most years we paid around $25 a YEAR in premiums. The highest was $100… for the year. Granted it had a replacement value of $150K I think, but still. At least one year, we didn’t pay anything.
Sadly, our next house - a 100+ year old Victorian - didn’t qualify. Go figure. And worse, they make us insure it for the replacement cost which is many, many times higher than it would actually sell for, or for a size house that I would ever rebuild. And then you get into the jumbo categories and $$$… ugh…
But the next best part of that original insurance company was that it also came with Janet. Janet works for a local insurance broker. She reviews our policy and shops around every few years. I love Janet. I trust Janet. Whenever we have had car wrecks (maybe 4-5 across the family and NONE were our fault!), I just called Janet. She took care of everything. All of the calls, follow-up calls when the other people wouldn’t take care of their paperwork, etc. Did I mention I love Janet?
Short Answer: We are currently bundled with Hanover. Previously, we were with Travelers, and there was at least one other company before that. At our first house, we had Horace Mann for the cars. We’ve never had any issues with any of them, because I don’t think we’ve ever had a claim against them… except maybe a new windshield here or there.
House insurance is generally based on replacement or rebuild cost, not market value of the house (which may be much higher or lower than replacement or rebuild cost).
I’m very well aware of that. Doesn’t mean I have to like it
LOL, all I could think of reading your post was “Janet” the helper from The Good Place.
YES, everyone needs a “Janet”!!! 
I have been very happy with GEICO car insurance over the years. They handled our claims very efficiently (from a total to a windshield crack).I am now doing renter’s insurance through them as well.
My home insurance passed hands a few times (they were sold). As Plymouth Rock Insurance, they were wonderful when we had a flood. I was redoing my kitchen and the plumber had done some work under the sink. I left and came home to the kitchen flooded all the way down into the finished basement below. I called them immediately (once I turned off the main water) and they had a clean up service at my house in less than an hour. The clean up people wet vacced the floor, disposed of everything that had gotten wet, and left me with huge fans to continue the drying process. I know this was in the insurance company’s best interest to avoid having any mold develop.
They also covered the complete costs of repairs (which included a new kitchen cabinet, replacing carpet, a new drop ceiling, a few pieces of furniture, and painting the entire area.) I submitted the bills, and they paid them all in full (no questioning of costs, etc.)
She’s my “Jake from State Farm!”
A good broker is so important. We pay a LOT each year for professional liability insurance as structural engineers. We’ve had good brokers and not so good ones. Our current one is excellent and goes to bat for us, managing to get our premium reduced by over $1,000/year in some cases.
I don’t know that any home owners insurance company really has your back. I think they all try to pay out as little as possible. This sounds cynnical, and it’s based on a bad experience we had with Chubb in 2019. We suffered major damage as a result of a heating system issue (we basically had to put in a new system). When we were looking for home owners insurance, our broker insisted that Chubb was the best homeowners insurance. In our case, Chubb paid for about 70% of the repair costs. We are now suing the heating company with whom we had a maintenance contract for the rest of the repair costs.
My bigger problem with Chubb is that Chubb dropped us. They still insure our vacation place, but won’t insurance our primary residence. I’m sure it’s because we made this claim. We had difficulty even finding a company to provide us with homeowner’s insurance for out primary residence; at least that’s what the broker told us. We finally got home owners through Lloyds of London and it’s $$$.
As a result, I don’t feel kindly toward Chubb.
We live in Southern California and have AAA for both car and home insurance. We’ve had a few car insurance claims and they’ve always been very responsive and helpful. So far, we haven’t had any home insurance claims.
Following this thread with interest. We have Farmers (used to be MetPay). Have them for both house and cars, have had them for a very long time. Premiums are high and H for some bizarre reason, doesn’t believe we can go lower and so doesn’t want to switch.
We discussed this with friends this past weekend (coincidentally). A friend who lives in NH pays about the same as we do for home insurance, but his car rates were so much lower than ours!! We have an Audi that has comprehensive insurance and boy, that’s a ton. I am going to look into dropping that or finding a better deal somewhere else…
We have Erie for both, and they aren’t cheap but we’ve been happy enough with them.
We had Nationwide for homeowners in our previous home, and they were VERY helpful when we had a pipe burst and bad flooding damage.
Allstate would be the “bad one” for me. Had a bad experience with them back in the late 80’s, and with so many choices I’ve never considered them again.
We have an insurance agent who actually would handle all of our claims (we haven’t had a claim for a VERY VERY long time). This agent also shops around prices annually for us to get the best price for the same coverage.
We had SafeCo for about 5 years. This year we have Hanover.
Goal is…don’t have claims.
Our agent is fabulous and returns calls or texts from us very quickly.
I have had State Farm, Liberty Mutual, and a few others as well. I have to say. I have never had poor customer service from any of them…but I always have had an agent as well.
So you have an insurance BROKER, not agent. From Experian: “Insurance agents and insurance brokers can both help you buy an insurance policy. But insurance agents represent the insurance provider that employs them and help sell policies from that single provider. Insurance brokers represent the consumers who use them and can help them shop for policies from multiple providers.”
Our State Farm agent used to handle our claims, but now we call a 1-800 number. But it worked fine, no complaints.
I have an insurance broker. Have been very happy with local insurers Island and Tradewind. They handled and paid claims professionally & promptly. Not sure about other carriers. My former agent was pretty careful about always trying to have us use insurers who worked well if claims had to be made.
I’ll counter that with our USAA homeowners insurance who not only covered my hardwood floors destroyed due to a leaking refrigerator while we were on vacation. But about a year later we recvd a check from USAA fully reimbursing our deductible as they took GE to court and sued them due to selling a product that was known faulty. Pleasantly surprised. We also have them for auto as do our children. They are definitely not the least expensive but they just take care of everything without too many moving parts on your end. Just file it and its handled, or it seems.
Ok. I have a broker. Whatever she is called, she is terrific!
Some states are no fault. My son was hit in Utah. Other drive acknowledged they caused. Utah is not no fault.
State Farm was a NIGHTMARE.
It took 3 months and two states to finally get it done.
They slow walked for weeks, saying we couldn’t take the car to a dealer, which was required by our lease - that we must go to their store or pay the difference. Additionally, they wanted to buff out a very expensive headlamp that the dealer said must be replaced.
We ending up making no profess - and in state #2 - we finally got in the shop and they only rented us a car for 20 days. The work took longer - they extended but through lots of calls. The estimate was higher than the first dealer. Finally - they agreed to pay and the body shop could order parts.
Working for a car company, I asked dealers about them - two said they tell customers they won’t work with them, they are welcome to pay cash and seek reimbursement on their own. Others said - they loathe them.
So not a fan - but both my kids have with renters.
As for Farmers - a forever grudge - we had water intrusion growing up, they wanted to pay $8K. My dad had a friend who was an insurance investigator - he knew what it was. There was litigation - Farmers was found guilty of bad faith and had to pay more than the damage caused and yet it probably took a few years off my dad’s life…just harrowing.
They all act like they are there for you.
Donegal was very good on a claim - I’ll say that.
Never heard of them but the broker put us there.