Take a look at Safeco, a Liberty Mutual Company.

We had State Farm for years, until they just priced themselves out of sight. We went with a broker, and ended up with Erie Insurance, which is headquartered in PA.

My Dad said at the time that he'd had Erie when we lived in Ohio, and would have kept them except they didn't do business here back then. My brother also has them and says good things.

We're USAA. I've dealt with both Farmers and State Farm when their insured drivers hit my cars. They're horrible, IMO. I finally just told them to deal with my insurance company and to leave me out of it. lol

Erie is a good company too. However, they are about 40% higher than my current apples to apples policy with Safeco.

Seek out a company that offers a senior discount and low mileage discount. Of course zip code premiums will vary.

My son has USAA and is happy with it. I can't get a competitive quote from them. They're always 50% more.

I'm not looking for individual companies, but rather, benefits (or not) of going with a broker who handles many companies vs agents who sell for one of the big three.

Safeco is handled by a broker. My agent writes for about 75 small insurance companies.

Beware of Safeco. We had auto and homeowner's insurance with them for years and our premiums got higher and higher. even though we had no accidents or claims. We switched to State Farm, and we're only saving about a hundred dollars a year on our homeowner's, but our auto insurance premiums are much lower than they were with Safeco.

Going with a broker with multiple carriers may give you more options as there are many brokered companies worth a look. With their best quote you can easily comparison shop with the direct writers. Its always good to shop it all at least every two years.

DH was the injured party in an accident in 2012. It was a low speed T-bone incident at a 3-way stop where only DH had no stop sign. A novice driver failed to realize she had to give way and accelerated into the driver's side of our car.

We have used State Farm for everything for decades. They are uniformly slow and obtuse, and this was no exception. Fortunately, the teen's father's insurance was through Chubb, and they were excellent.

Why are we still using State Farm? Chubb was expensive, and we came to the conclusion that most 'affordable' companies we looked at are no better than State Farm. We are also too lazy to devote the time to switching, believing we'd get 'a great deal' that would not continue past the first renewal.

We are very happy with Geico. Their rates were much less than our previous car insurance.

We have a company that only operates in the state of Alabama so that won’t help you. But i can tell you that having to deal with State Farm on a claim a couple of years ago was painfully slow and pretty awful. But I think it depends on the agent.

DGD had a guy back into her in an always crowded Starbucks parking lot. She was sitting still. The gentleman claimed it was her fault. He also had State Farm and then basically lied to his agent and said it was her fault. Her boyfriend was in the car with her but SF disallowed his witness statement because he was her boyfriend. So they ended up with having a ‘no fault’ settlement to get to any settlement at all. He basically told an outright lie as she was waiting to pull out in traffic, honking her horn and couldn’t move to get out of his way.

When there's an auto "incident", what percentage of the time would you guess at least one person tells a falsehood? My guess - almost every time. The insurance companies handle these situations every day and unless there's a cost difference to them (as between one company and the other, for which I believe they have resolution approaches anyway), they really don't care or need to dwell on every such situation.

I have Safeco through a broker, but I don't have any faith that she's comparing anything, just getting her commission at renewal time. I hate shopping for insurance. Oh, and I think there are some good deals through Costco for car insurance (maybe house, too). I think people are generally happy with their companies, until there are problems with a claim or rates spike for no reason.

Our state's Insurance Commissioner, has on the agency website, statistics for all insurance companies licensed to sell insurance in our state. You can go there and compare the complaints filed against different companies, their market share and how that compares to similar companies. Your state may have something similar.

https://fortress.wa.gov/oic/complaints/complaints.aspx?Type=PP&Year=2016&Name=

We have been with State Farm for over 15 years. We have a decent agent at our location, and have been satisfied with their service. We have 3 cars and homeowners insured with them. Two years ago when I was T-boned at a 4-way stop by a car full of young people who ran the stop sign, my agent was great help in walking us through the claim process. The other party had Geico for insurance and due to the way we were treated by them, I can not recommend Geico. They dragged and stalled the arbitration part; Stretched that out to one year.

With State Farm, we may not be getting the lowest cost, but we are getting good service. They used a quality repair shop to repair my car after I hit a deer. Our agent helped us get the proper papers to carry with us when we drove into Canada.

Didn't State Farm pay to have your car fixed immediately, before things had been settled with Geico? I presume so and if they did, why was the delay (which is typical for a third party claim) a problem for you?

Try Progressive or Amica.

I have USAA, which was cheaper than my old Farm Bureau. My son was on my USAA and then he bought a newer car and the premiums were outrageous so the car dealer told him to call Erie...still expensive but not nearly as much as USAA. I recently got a brochure in the mail from them and am going to call them if I ever get more than 2 days off in a row where I'm not running around all day.

By elmer J. fudd:

"Didn't State Farm pay to have your car fixed immediately, before things
had been settled with Geico? I presume so and if they did, why was the
delay (which is typical for a third party claim) a problem for you?"

Yes, my car was totaled and its cash value (before the crash) was given to me a short time after the body shop made a repair estimate. The repair cost was almost the price of a new vehicle and my vehicle was about 11 yrs old at time.

The arbitration was about a different issue. Since I was out the cost of registration, licensing, and sales tax for the replacement car, my agent tried to pry this cost out of the opposing insurance company. After over one year, there was no payment and the case closed. It was not a large amount.

I'm captive with the big A here in Illinois. Insurance is cyclical. A takes a rate increase and the rest follow suit. States have to approve rate increases. I can't do anything where the rates/premiums are concerned, all I can do is give you the best service I know how to give and 20 years tells me what I need to be doing. Captive is good but my personal insurance is with a broker because he has a contract with the carrier I wanted in Wisconsin and that is West Bend. They have a great product and that is what I wanted. Try both, get quotes and see what the turn around is and the service in getting those quotes. Ask to have a sit down, some agents will discourage that, you may not want that type of agent. Next to your family your insurance is protecting your greatest assets, it deserves your full attention and time. Double check your coverage's, replacement versus cash value especially when it comes to the roof. Here in this area high wind and hail is our biggest risk/loss. Many companies will only pay replacement on roofs that are less than 12 years old. After that they will go to a depreciation schedule. Check your deductibles, many will slip in a percentage, know what the percentage is and how it applies. Hope that helps.

Check around among your friends as to not only prices and service at the time of purchase ...

... but what experiences they may have had when it came time to make a claim.

Being from anudder country, I have little suggestion to offer with regard to what companies may be great in your area.

ole joyful

When we moved from California to Michigan, I was shocked at the rates here; they are literally the highest in the country. As with your experience, the AAA here is subpar as opposed to CA AAA as well. We tried Amica, which was great at first, but went up substantially every year, then I went with Liberty Mutual which also went up every year but the last year we were with them our auto policy jumped 1600! No tickets, no accidents, nothing. When shopping around, I found out it was because of a new law passed by the state, so that is something you may be experiencing as well. We ended up going with a locally owned but well established broker who found a good policy (for us) with Citizens Hanover.

When it comes to brokers, yes I do think you need to shop around as well but when it comes to especially State Farm and some of the larger companies, I think people have very short memories because during the hurricanes in Florida and along the east coast, they have been the leader when it comes to screwing people. I’ve also been on the receiving end of how they treat people who have been injured by one of their insureds. No thanks!

Well, just got the quote from USAA, and it is 57% more than the best quote I got from the broker. So much for that option!

Not surprised. I've been hearing that from many people. I even encouraged my brother to give them a shot for his son. Way too high.

You left the state too soon, sushipup. I got a quote from them when this thread started (I bank with USAA so it was relatively quick, they had much of my info already) and the quote was within a few dollars in total for what I pay State Farm. Not enough reason to switch, but not uncompetitive. I'm sure it varies by area.

Elmer, even the USAA annual premium quote was $300 less than the AAA price I paid in CA. And home insurance is a lot less, too.

Liberty Mutual - sad.

I had good luck with American Family but the premiums went up every year.

We are going to be shopping our insurance soon.

My mom had Chubb. As I recall it was more money but the service was great.

AAA in California has long tended to be more expensive than other insurance companies.

I've never understood the attraction. With State Farm, I get emergency road service coverage (and I can call a dedicated State Farm contractor, a AAA service or any other service provider I choose) and the annual cost is something like $8 per car.

You may want to look at Citizens/Hanover. They have a good rating and competitive pricing.