Best car insurance company: Allstate, Geico, Progressive, or State Farm?

When there are dozens of providers from which to choose, it can be overwhelming trying to find the right coverage for you and your car.

To start, we look at some of the biggest players in the game: Allstate, Geico, Progressive and State Farm. They are the biggest auto insurers in the country. With over 50% of the market share between them, these are the companies worth reviewing first when you’re looking for the best car insurance.

To best judge their services, we analyze key factors such as coverage options, discounts, average car insurance rates, tools, and resources. We also look to J.D. Power rankings for overall customer satisfaction.

How the different companies compare

To best understand how each car insurance compares — Allstate vs. Geico vs. Progressive vs. State Farm — it’s important to look at how pricing breaks down. We look at how each company’s rates compare for different types of drivers, while also taking into account critical factors like coverage, pricing, discounts, customer satisfaction and customer experience.

Best for new and young drivers: Allstate

• Coverage options: Allstate covers all your bases with liability, medical payments, collision, comprehensive, uninsured and underinsured motorist, rental reimbursement and roadside coverage options. The provider also offers protection for your car’s sound system and can extend your protection by adding a personal umbrella policy alongside your auto insurance.
• Discounts: Allstate offers discounts for your car’s safety and anti-theft features, safe driving, new cars, multiple policies and smart students. They also reward you for signing your policy early, paying on time, setting up automatic payments, going paperless and paying your policy in full.
• Ratings: Allstate’s customer satisfaction rankings fall all over the scale, but most areas maintain about low-to-average ratings. If you live in Florida, however, you can look forward to some of the very best customer service in the state.
• Customer experience: Allstate strives to make the claims handling process easy and offers a claim satisfaction guarantee. With Allstate’s Drivewise® program, drivers get personalized feedback on their driving, and get rewarded for safe driving by lowering insurance costs.

Best for drivers looking for deep discounts: Geico

• Coverage options: Geico’s coverage options are virtually identical to State Farms’. Geico offers liability, collision, comprehensive, medical payments, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, emergency road service, rideshare driver and rental reimbursement coverage. They also offer mechanical breakdown insurance.
• Discounts: Geico offers several discount types, ranging from discounts for the safety features in your car to your driver’s education to your group affiliations (the provider offers discounts for military, federal employees and a number of other groups).
• Ratings: Within the Southwest region, Geico receives a score of 834/1000, tied for first place with American Family Insurance. Geico performs well in other regions, too, ranking high in the Southeast, Northwest, North Central and New York regions.
• Customer experience: Geico has a coverage calculator to help you decide how much car insurance you need, and it doesn’t stop there with online tools. From Geico’s site and app, you can get your ID cards, pay your bill and file a claim. Because you can do so much digitally, Geico is able to keep costs low and pass that along to you in the form of lower premiums in many cases.

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Best for drivers with a clean claim history: Progressive

• Coverage options: Progressive offers liability, medical payments, collision, comprehensive, uninsured and underinsured motorist, roadside assistance, rental car reimbursement and rideshare driver coverage. On top of that, Progressive offers gap insurance and protection for the custom parts you’ve added to your car.
• Discounts: Progressive’s Snapshot® program helps you save more the safer you drive. It also offers safe driver, homeowner, multi-car, multi-policy, continuous coverage, teen driver and good student discounts. What’s more, if you’re comfortable using the digital systems, you can score savings for getting your quote online, signing your documents online, going paperless and setting up automatic payments.
• Ratings: Customer service varies for Progressive, based on the region. It is one of the lowest-ranking companies for customer experience in New York, the Southwest, and North Central, but ranks among the best in Texas and the Central region.
• Customer experience: Progressive offers a deductible savings bank, meaning your collision and comprehensive deductibles drop $50 for every six-month period during which you’re claim-free. The provider also has a Coverage Checker®, which highlights any areas where your current coverage might be leaving you exposed. You can chat with Flo on Facebook Messenger to get quick answers to your car coverage queries.

Best for drivers with a history of accidents: State Farm

• Coverage options: State Farm offers the car coverage standards (liability, collision, comprehensive, medical payments), plus rental car reimbursement, coverage if you get into an accident with an uninsured or underinsured driver and emergency road service. State Farm also offers coverage for rideshare drivers and Payoff Protector®, their answer to gap insurance.
• Discounts: State Farm’s discounts include Drive Safe & Save™ and Steer Clear® for new and young drivers, plus discounts for good driving, being accident-free, completing driving training, driving a car with safety and anti-theft features and bundling multiple car policies or other types of coverage.
• Ratings: State Farm delivers average customer satisfaction ratings, except within New York, New England and the Mid-Atlantic. Here, in areas where most other companies falter, State Farm excels with its customer service.
• Customer experience: State Farm is the largest auto insurer in the country. It offers a mobile app and has almost 18,000 agents across the country so you can easily find one local to you.

Factors that affect car insurance rates

Each of these insurers personalizes your rate to you based on a few key factors, including:

• Where you live
• What kind of car you drive
• Your history of car accidents and driving violations
• Your age and gender
• Your credit score
• Your marital status
• How much you drive each year
• Your insurance claims history

Additionally, your car insurance rates will vary based on how much coverage you choose to buy. Some people opt for bare-bones coverage, buying only what’s required by state law. Others want specific protection in case their car is stolen or breaks down on the side of the road. Adding more coverage types to your auto insurance policy increases the cost of your coverage.

Comparing the leading car insurance providers

*Based on 2020 Southeast regional ratings.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best car insurance company?

When you look at J.D. Power’s State Farm, Geico, Allstate and Progressive insurance reviews, the scoring shows the service you can expect largely depends on the area in which you live. If you’re looking for the cheapest car insurance company, all four of these companies offer online quotes so you can see what rates they would charge you based on your unique personal factors and coverage needs.

How do I make sure I have enough car insurance coverage?

To find out how much insurance coverage you need, a coverage calculator will help you estimate your car insurance needs to help you pick the right level of protection. Each of these companies have local or live agents who are eager to help if you prefer that a live person walks you through the coverage selection process.

How do I save on car insurance?

If you want to pay as little as possible for the coverage you need, you can take some steps to lower your premiums. Safe driving is an excellent way to bring the cost of your coverage down. Bundle your car insurance with the other policies you need (like home insurance or renters insurance) and, if you don’t mind the risk, increase your deductibles. Most importantly, get quotes from multiple car insurance companies to make sure you’re getting the best rate possible.

Methodology

Bankrate utilizes Quadrant Information Services to analyze rates for all ZIP codes and carriers in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Quoted rates are based on a 40-year-old male and female driver with a clean driving record, good credit and the following full coverage limits:

• $100,000 bodily injury liability per person
• $300,000 bodily injury liability per accident
• $50,000 property damage liability per accident
• $100,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury per person
• $300,000 uninsured motorist bodily injury per accident
• $500 collision deductible
• $500 comprehensive deductible

To determine minimum coverage limits, Bankrate used minimum coverages that meet each state’s requirements. Our sample drivers own a 2018 Honda Accord, commute five days a week and drive 12,000 miles annually.

These are sample rates and should be used for comparative purposes only. Your quotes may be different.