Washington State Insurance Complaint Comparison Guide

The Washington State Insurance Commissioner, Mike Kreidler, just announced a new Web-based tool for consumers, called the annual Complaint Comparison Guide. The guide gives consumers information about the number of complaints filed against auto, health, or homeowners insurance companies and compares the company’s volume of complaints to that other similar companies.

The most useful piece of information is the ‘Complaint Index’ which measures each company’s complaint ratio in relation to all the other companies. A complaint index of 1 means the company had an average number of complaints filed against them. A complaint index higher than 1, means the company has more complaints than average and vice versa.

We are all looking to pay as little as possible for our auto insurance and yet we want to make sure that when we are involved in an accident things are taken care of correctly. In other words we do not want to be fighting our insurance company. One thing this guide does not provide is what percentage of the complaints are from the policy holders and what percentage are from third-party claimants. I am more worried that my policy take care of me and my family (the real reason I bought the policy) than I am concerned that they pay the other guy quickly.

Another difficulty with the guide is that, because of insurance regulations, most of the companies actually do business in the state under different but similar names, for example Progressive has 7 different entries in the list, all with different ratios.

“Consumers deserve to know how their company stacks up,” said Kreidler. “Our Insurance Consumer Hotline receives more than 2,000 calls a week from consumers with questions about their insurance. While not all calls result in formal complaints, knowing how your company rates before your buy or renew coverage can give you peace of mind.”

A Complaint Comparison Guide can be generated for health, private passenger auto and homeowners insurance for the years 2005 on back to 2003. Depending on which line of insurance is selected, a report will be generated which shows the company, the number of complaints, the complaint index, the company’s market share and how much premium it collected.

A complaint index measures the number of consumer complaints for one company in relation to other companies in the same market. A company with a complaint index of 1 has an average number of complaints. A company with a complaint index higher than 1 has more complaints than average.

“Shopping around for insurance pays,” Kreidler added. “The new guide gives consumers one more tool to compare insurance companies. Anyone looking for insurance should do their research. Consider how much coverage you need, how much that coverage will cost, as well as the company’s customer service and financial strength before you buy a policy.”