Auto-Owners Auto Insurance Review 2025

4.8

Jerry’s Score

Our take

Auto-Owners is one of Jerry’s top-rated insurers, with a reputation for affordable coverage and a wide array of customization and discount options. This coverage is worth considering if you’re in one of the 26 states where it’s offered.

Pros

• Reputation for affordable coverage.
• Many insurance add-ons available.
• Ample discount offerings.
• Fewer-than-average customer complaints.

Cons

• Only available in 26 states.
• No online quotes.

Auto-Owners Car Insurance Review

Jerry rates Auto-Owners 4.8 stars out of 5. This score is higher than many other insurers that Jerry rates and takes into account industry ratings, consumer ratings, financial strength and national complaint data.

Auto-Owners provides quality car insurance that’s worth considering if you’re in one of the 26 states where the company does business. The insurer’s coverage is relatively customizable compared to others, and plenty of discounts are available to policyholders.

Likewise, Auto-Owners does well with customers and industry experts alike, maintaining a relatively low (good) consumer complaint index with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), a high financial strength rating and a solid standing in industry reports.

Is Auto-Owners a good insurance company?

With a reputation for affordable and customizable coverage, Auto-Owners may be a good option for drivers from all backgrounds. The insurer works best for customers who:

• Live in one of the 26 states where the insurer does business.
• Prefer to buy coverage with an agent, rather than online.
• Want to take advantage of some of the Auto-Owners’ unique offerings, like diminished value and rental coverages.

How much does Auto-Owners car insurance cost?

Auto-Owners has a reputation for charging below-average rates to drivers with different driving records and coverage levels.

Your premium is determined by a number of factors, including your age, location, the type and age of vehicle you drive, your driving record, other drivers on your policy and the amount of coverage you buy.

Auto-Owners car insurance discounts

Drivers who carry Auto-Owners can get a rate discount for:

• Insuring multiple vehicles on one policy.
• Having multiple policies with the insurer.
• Adding safety features to the insured vehicle.
• Insuring a student who maintains a B average or better.
• Going paperless.
• Paying the full premium up front.
• Getting a quote before the current policy ends.
• Making on-time payments for 36 months or longer.

Auto-Owners car insurance coverage options

Like most insurers, Auto-Owners offers collision, comprehensive, liability for bodily injury, liability for property damage, medical expense, personal injury protection and uninsured/underinsured motorist.

• Coverage definitions

  Coverage	Definition
  Collision	Pays to repair or replace your car if it’s damaged in a collision with another vehicle. You can only file an accident-related claim for your vehicle’s repairs if your policy has collision coverage.
  Comprehensive	Covers damage to your vehicle caused by non-collision hazards, such as car theft, falling tree branches, hail and other unexpected events.
  Liability for Bodily Injury (BI)	Helps cover medical costs sustained by others in an accident you cause. It’s mandatory in most states.
  Liability for Property Damage (PD)	Helps pay for repairs or replacements of any vehicles or objects you damage. It’s mandatory in most states.
  Personal Injury Protection (PIP)	Helps cover medical expenses for you and your passengers after a car accident, regardless of who caused it. This is required in some states.
  Medical Expenses (MedPay)	Additional coverage outside of PIP that pays for medical care for you and your passengers after an accident, regardless of who caused it. This is optional in most states
  Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM/UIM)	Covers you, your passengers and any property damage in a case where the other driver is at fault but doesn’t have insurance or carries insufficient coverage to pay for your costs.

The insurer also provides the following coverages:

• Roadside assistance can pay for services such as a locksmith, fuel delivery or a battery jump when you’re away from home.
• Gap insurance is for financed or leased cars, in case they’re totaled in an accident. If that happens, gap insurance pays the difference between the vehicle’s cash value and the money you owe on it.
• Diminished value coverage compensates you if your vehicle’s market value is lower after an accident, even if the car is fully repaired.
• Additional expense insurance pays your costs to travel while your vehicle is being repaired after an accident. This coverage includes the cost of a rental car, and if you’re far away from home when your car becomes undriveable, it also covers expenses like food and lodging.
• Rental gap extends coverage to a rental vehicle.
• Modified vehicle coverage covers custom equipment that wasn’t installed by the original manufacturer, including driver control modifications and wheelchair lifts.

Auto-Owners provides specialized coverage for classic cars.

Industry ratings of Auto-Owners car insurance

Auto-Owners performs well in industry reports and customer ratings alike, maintaining a relatively low number of consumer complaints, high financial strength rating and landing about average in consumer satisfaction.

• NAIC

  Auto-Owners’s private passenger policies had a moderately low complaint index with the NAIC from 2021 to 2023, meaning the company had fewer complaints than expected for a company its size all three years. The insurer’s index has steadily lowered over time.

  Qualitative rating	3-year consumer complaint index
  High	Above 1.5.
  Moderately high	1 to 1.5.
  About average	Near 1.
  Moderately low	1 to 0.5.
  Low	0.5 to 0.

  The NAIC is the member group for state insurance commissioners in the United States. It makes recommendations, analyzes insurer financial filings, maintains reporting and more for insurance regulators.

• CRASH Network

  CRASH Network, an automotive trade publication, gives Auto-Owners a B in its 2024 Insurer Report Card. This is a higher grade than many other insurers that Jerry reviews. The report card asks more than 1,000 collision repair professionals across the United States how well an insurer’s claims handling policies, attitude and payment practices ensure quality repairs and customer service for drivers.
  

  Auto-Owners ranks No. 17 of 88 insurers listed on the report card.

  In 2024, the CRASH Network’s survey received responses from 1,134 repair professionals. Insurers that received a grade from at least 35 respondents were included in the 2024 report card. Read more about the report card methodology on the CRASH Network’s website.

• J.D. Power

  Between J.D. Power’s insurance shopping and claims satisfaction studies, Auto-Owners performed about average. The insurer received above-average marks in the 2024 Insurance Shopping Study, ranking No. 8 of 17 with a score of 679 out of 1,000. 
  

  However, Auto-Owners came in at No. 13 of 21 in J.D. Power’s 2024 Auto Claims Satisfaction Study, slightly below the average, with a score of 692 out of 1,000.

  J.D. Power is a market research company that evaluates customer satisfaction and industry performance across multiple sectors.

• AM Best

  Auto-Owners has a financial strength rating of A+ with AM Best, one step below the highest rating an insurer can achieve. This means the company has a superior ability to pay out claims.

  AM Best is a credit rating agency that specializes in insurers’ ability to meet their financial obligations.

How to contact Auto-Owners

Policyholders can pay bills and report claims online. Current and prospective customers are encouraged to contact a local agent, but customers can fill out a form on the Auto-Owners website (https://www.auto-owners.com/about/contact-us) or reach customer service at 800-346-0346.

Methodology

We looked at over 400,000 actual policies quotes from real Jerry customers during 2024 across 24 different insurance companies. The pricing data included both those with clean driving records as well as those with a violation. 

How we rate car insurance companies

Jerry’s team of car insurance expert writers and editors analyze real customer ratings and industry reports to get a holistic view of an insurer’s performance. Our rubric emphasizes the shopping and claims experiences, customer complaints and reviews, repair shops’ evaluations of insurers, policy and quote pricing, and state availability.

We regularly reassess insurers’ star ratings and fact-check these reviews to ensure they’re accurate and up-to-date.
These individual factors roll up into one weighting system as follows:
20% Financial strength.
20% Complaints.
20% Industry ratings.
20% Customer ratings.
20% Cost and discounts.

MEET OUR EXPERTS

Annie Millerbernd

Annie is a content strategist at Jerry and has more than a decade of experience writing and editing digital content. Before joining Jerry, she was an assistant assigning editor at NerdWallet, where she covered loans. Previously, she worked at USAA and newspapers in Minnesota, North Dakota, California, and Texas. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota.

Lacie Glover

Lacie Glover is a Lead Content Strategist with sixteen years’ experience in the insurance category. Prior to Jerry, she spent more than a decade on NerdWallet’s content team writing, editing and then overseeing the auto insurance category, as well as dabbling in other insurance and automotive topics. Prior to her career in the online personal finance content space, Lacie spent time in the hard sciences, in clinical research and chemistry labs. She has a bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University.