What Are Complaint-ratio Reports?

By Author: Norris Rios
Total Articles: 572
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When economic times are hard, everyone looks for ways to save their hard-earned dollars. The big temptation is to go for the lowest quotes. You look at the mandate and prefer not to run the risk of a prosecution. The gut response is therefore to pay the lowest possible price for the piece of paper to keep you legal on the roads. Except you have to ask yourself why the prices are so much lower from some of the insurance companies. There's always the possibility that some have found a way to predict the amount of claims more accurately. Without the need for a contingency funds against unpredictable losses, we can all pay less. Or perhaps the executives have all voted themselves a big pay cut and passed on the savings to us hard-pressed consumers. Well, in your dreams, perhaps.

In fact, the most usual explanation for the lower premiums is the general unwillingness to pay out on claims. That way the directors and senior company officers can take their big salaries, and still have enough left over to pay a good enough dividend to the stockholders to keep them quiet. You could just assume the worst and avoid all the lowest ...
... quotes, or could could take a few moments to do a little research. That way, you could find the companies that really do give you the lowest rates and good service.

It might not surprise you know that, over the last three years, about one-third the complaints made to the Insurance Commissioners have been about auto insurance. Why, you ask, should the Commissioners know this? Well, every state insurance department is required to offer a complaint mediation service. This is supposed to give you an impartial investigation of the service you have received. If the Commissioner finds you have been wronged, the insurer can be invited to take action to make you feel better. This can just be that you complete the claim with an adequate valuation, or it can involve you receiving compensation on top. The politics of the state usually set the tone.

The Democrat states tend to be pro-consumer and order the insurers to make good your losses. For example, in 2010, the Commissioner in California recovered $52 millions from insurers judged to be offering poor services. Better still, the proactive Commissioners name and shame the insurers who offer the worst service, listing the number of complaints and the percentage upheld. The GOP states are, at best, neutral when it comes to consumer rights. However, there's one virtue in all this. All states publish complaint-ratio reports. This shows the number of complaints as a percentage of the policies written by each insurer. So, although this is not perfect information, it's a good indication of whether you are going to be complaining.

So before you get the next round of auto insurance quotes, find the website for your state's Insurance Commissioner. You should be able to find the complaint-ratio without any difficulty and have the listing beside you when the quotes start coming in. Now you should be able to see which of the cheap car insurance offers are worth taking further.