I just went to their site to get more info and got the following message: Effective August 1, 2005, the American Express Property Casualty companies are Ameriprise Auto & Home Insurance. Ameriprise Auto & Home Insurance is underwritten by AMEX Assurance Company or IDS Property Casualty Insurance Company, De Pere, WI. Both companies are wholly owned subsidiaries of Ameriprise Financial, Inc., expected to become independent of American Express on or after September 30, 2005. Learn more about this change, other changes to names of certain affiliated companies, and the anticipated separation from American Express Company by clicking on the Corporate Entities and Important Disclosures link at the bottom of this page. All other information on this site remains the same and does not change. I understand that some American Express companies and businesses have changed their names and that, for my convenience, I will see this message only once. Sounds like AmEx insurance isn't going to be AmEx for much longer . . . maybe not a good time to switch. tom418 - As far as AmEx being strict, thats kind of what I'm getting at. If they are so strict when it comes time to file a claim that they are hard to work with, it probably is not worth the switch. I don't have any first hand experience, but I've heard many times that is how AAA is, atleast here in California, even when working with their own policyholders. And you are right earthworm, a lot of times their is a catch to saving money and you do get what you pay for. I like your idea of a fill-in-the-blank form, but I'm sure they'd just laugh and hand it back.

We have the Hartford for all our insurance needs. Cars, and homeowners. We pay less than we ever did before and have higher coverage. We have not had any claims so we have no experience that way. I think you save by not paying an agent their commission.

graywings, we had auto insurance with GEICO for over 10 years and our experience was positive, but I guess any insurance company could handle some customers badly. As for State Farm paying regardless of who was at fault because it insured both drivers, they were willing to pay us, but would not assign liability to the other driver though she was at fault. We didn't think the claim should be paid from our policy (which could affect rates or coverage later) because there was no dispute as to who was at fault in the police report and the witness statement. The other driver wouldn't admit fault until a few weeks after the police report came out and she didn't have any other justification or proof.

We ended up going with Citizens/Hanover. I was actually a little worried because I didn't know much about them, but I did some research on my own and found high reviews. They are also rated AA in the Best Book so we decided to give it a shot. In Michigan, if someone is injured or even has a heart attack in their car, the AUTO COMPANY is responsible for all the medicial bills. It's horrible and has raised our rates to unreasonable amounts; highest in the country actually. State Farm is notorious for not paying, fighting everything tooth and nail and for using very sneaky methods to get out of their obligations. They're going to be great for you until you have a claim or a problem. There is no charge from an insured to use a broker and it really took no time for them to compare rates with 15 different companies. It was 3 days from the day I first called, to the day I had policies in hand. Wonderful experience. I would highly recommend you give a broker a call, send them a copy of your deck sheets and let them see what they can do. There is no obligation, so really what do you have to loose?