Finding The Best Homeowners Insurance Companies

by Brandon Cornett

Are you planning to buy a home in the near future? If so, you need to have a homeowners insurance policy in place before you close on the home and move in. Or perhaps you already own a home but you're unhappy with your current insurance? In either case, you'll benefit from this lesson on choosing the best homeowners insurance companies.

Statement of Non-bias: Let me start by saying I do not represent any of these companies, nor do I work for them. I am not being compensated to write this article in any manner. This article is the result of my own personal research and reviews of the best homeowners insurance companies in the United States.

Best Insurance Companies Vary, Depending on Who You Ask

There are two important concepts I want you to take away from this article, so I will state them now, and also at the end of the article as a reminder. Here are the two key points to keep in mind:

1. Different surveys produce different results. But you can often find overlap where a particular insurance company shows up on multiple lists.
2. You cannot get an objective review of a particular company by reading their website or brochure (both of which are created by their marketing departments).

Different surveys and studies will produce different results. For example, during the course of my research, I examined more than a dozen customer-satisfaction surveys and other studies that ranked the best homeowners insurance companies in America. Every one of these surveys had a different set of results. Sure, there was some overlap, with certain companies appearing in the top-10 of different rankings. But there were also a lot of variables.

The results of any survey are derived from two thing: (1) the group of people who were surveyed and (2) the criteria used to measure and rank the companies. What does this mean? It means that the best insurance providers will vary, depending on whom you ask.

Independent Research Is Best

The worst way to find out which companies are best is by reading their websites. After all, each company is going to claim to be the best. But they are hardly unbiased, now are they? That is why you should seek independent, third-party research into the best home insurance providers in America. Consumer Reports is a good example of such a publication. This company makes a living by being unbiased, and by doing thorough and objective research into the companies they review. J.D. Power is another good example of an objective source of reviews.

Find Companies That Appear on Multiple Lists

My best advice is to review several rankings / lists of top-rated insurance companies in the United States, and then look for common occurrences of the same company.

For example, when I reviewed a ranking by Consumer Reports and J.D. Power, I noticed that Amica Mutual Group was on the top of both lists. State Farm Insurance Group was also in the top ten for both of these surveys. This tells me that, based on customer surveys and independent research, these are two of the best homeowners insurance companies in the country. It certainly wouldn't be the end of my research, if I was looking for a provider -- but it would be a great start.

By the way, the Consumer Reports issue I referred to above is the September 2009 issue. They have a feature article on home insurance, which includes ratings of major providers. Their ratings are based on a survey conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, and is based on more than 10,000 responses from homeowners. You can also visit the J.D. Power website and do a search for best homeowners insurance to find their rankings.

Remember, you can't get a true picture of a home insurance provider from their own websites or brochures. All of these companies claim to be the best in some way, but that's just marketing talk. Instead, you should seek independent research and ratings (like the two that I've mentioned above) and see which companies keep coming up time after time on different lists. This is a very good indication of the best homeowners insurance companies, based on objective research -- and not marketing.

I hope this article helps you find the provider who is right for you, and I wish you all the best in your home buying process. We have a variety of other articles on this topic, and you can find them by using the search tool at the top of this website, or by visiting the Insurance Library section of our website.