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American Family Home Insurance Review
Just like your family, your home is unique, too. American Family is the dressed-up apple pie of insurance companies, covering your classic needs and then some.
- Plenty of discounts
- Tons of additional coverage
- 24/7 claims support
- Only average customer satisfaction
- Not available in every state
Whether you’re a new home buyer or a long-standing customer, it’s worth at least getting a quote from American Family homeowners insurance. With a broad range of coverage options, several discounts and plenty of digital tools and resources, American Family Insurance can meet most peoples’ needs.
American Family gets average scores for customer service and policy pricing, so it’s worth getting a quote to get an idea of what your policy would cost. Plus, you can get a quote online or work with an advisor to personalize your quote so you have a more specific idea of your premiums.
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American Family home insurance at a glance
| Price | Varies by location, home and other factors |
| Best for | New home insurance buyers and people with a personal or family history of working with American Family Insurance |
| Not for | People looking for top-tier customer service |
| States served | AZ, CO, CA, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NC, NE, NV, ND, OH, OR, SC, SD, TX, UT, VA, WA and WI |
| Discounts |
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| AM Best Rating | A |
| Standout features |
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The claim
American Family Insurance acknowledges that “your household is unique” so it offers “optional coverages that fit your unique needs.” It also claims to help first-time homebuyers get set up with the right coverage and offer savings to people who stick with them long-term, especially those who keep it in the family (i.e., kids who buy AmFam insurance when their parents are AmFam customers).
Is it true?
It seems to be. Specifically, American Family Insurance’s readily available digital tools make it easy to get the info you need to make an education decision when buying your home insurance policy. American Family offers a calculator, checklist and robust FAQs to give you plenty of information to make an informed purchasing decision.
The provider also has customizable coverage to fit your needs. With add-on options like sump pump and water backup or matching siding coverage, you can personalize your policy.
Also, American Family homeowners insurance offers a broad range of discounts and a diminishing deductible program, which means your deductible can drop every year you don’t file a claim.
As far as customer satisfaction, you can expect to feel decently happy with AmFam, but not overly excited. In the 2019 J.D. Power Home Insurance Study, American Family scored threes out of five for overall satisfaction, policy offerings, price, billing process and policy information, interaction and claims.
Our deep dive
- Digital tools: With AmFam, you get access to a broad range of online tools like a home insurance calculator and home insurance checklist. Also, you get the MyAccount App.
- Quote options: You can pick the right quote process for you. American Family homeowners insurance offers both a quick online quote or the option to work with an advisor to get a more detailed, personalized one.
- Around-the-clock support: American Family Insurance has 24/7 claims support.
- Standard coverage: Your policy protects your dwelling, other structures on your property, your personal belongings, certain expenses if you get displaced by a covered cause (loss of use coverage) and your liability. Note that standard home insurance policies don’t cover earthquakes or floods.
- Additional coverage: If you want, you can add equipment breakdown, sump pump and water backup, credit theft and monitoring and matching siding coverage.
- Safe, smart home discounts: Fit your home with a Ring doorbell or Nest system and save.
- Loyalty discounts: Long-term AmFam customers can get discounts, as can people who have parents with American Family homeowners insurance policies.
- Home discounts: You can also score discounts if your home is newly built, recently renovated in a significant way, or you purchased it in the last three years.
- Other discounts: You can save if you bundle your home insurance with other policies you need, like auto insurance. Plus, you get savings if you sign up for AutoPay, full pay or paperless billing.
- Diminishing deductible: Over time, your deductible can decrease if you choose this American Family home insurance policy.
Cost rundown
While we’d love to tell you how much your American Family home insurance will cost, we can’t. Your home insurance premiums depend on a bunch of factors that are, as AmFam would put it, unique to you. Those include:
- The location of your home and its risk for natural disasters
- The cost to rebuild it
- How much personal property you store in it
- If you own any dogs
- Your credit score (in some states)
- The deductible you pick
- Your home’s features, like security systems or fire prevention
Cheaper alternatives
If you have a mortgage, your lender will require home insurance. But if you own your home outright, congrats! You can skip home insurance, provided you feel comfortable you’d be able to repair or rebuild your home, replace your belongings and cover your liability should an issue ever arise.
If you want cheaper home insurance, there are a few things you can do to lower your premiums:
- Increase your deductible (as long as you can comfortably cover it as a one-time expense)
- Bundle your home insurance with other coverage you need like auto insurance
- Stick with American Family Insurance for a while so you can score the loyalty discount
- Invest in a smart, safe home
- Sign up for AutoPay, pay your premium in full or use paperless billing
- Get quotes from multiple insurance providers to make sure you’re getting the best rate
The competition
One of the best ways to know which provider is right for you is by comparing your options. That means getting several quotes, but it also means getting to know the strengths and weaknesses of your options. Here are some highlights from the most popular options.
- Allstate: If you care about claim forgiveness, check out Allstate. It also scored threes (i.e., about average) out of five in the J.D. Power study, so you can rest easy knowing Allstate has you covered in key areas.
- Farmers: Reviewers rated Farmers “about average” for every category measured in the 2019 J.D. Power Home Insurance Study. While Farmers might not blow you away with its policy offerings or prices, it’s worth getting a quote.
- State Farm: The biggest home insurance provider in the country, the J.D. Power study awarded State Farm four out of five for overall satisfaction and fours in three of the five categories. This places State Farm firmly in the “better than most” category, making it well worth getting a quote from.
- The Hartford: The Hartford offers home insurance for a specific demographic: AARP members. If you’re over the age of 50, and especially if you’re retired, get a quote from The Hartford so you can score the discounts geared specifically to you.
What others are saying
Insurance Business Magazine reported that American Family Insurance planned to merge with Main Street America. That merger was completed in October 2018. Main Street American now operates within the American Family Insurance brand.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported a 20 percent revenue increase, a 13 percent asset increase and a 54 percent net income increase for AmFam in 2019. That shows that American Family is profitable and continuing to grow.
The Better Business Bureau gives American Family Insurance an A rating, but reviews published with the BBB average at just over one star for the company. Remember, though, that people often only get the BBB involved once something has gone wrong.
Too long, didn’t read?
Ultimately, if you live in one of the states where American Family Insurance offers home coverage, get a quote. With lots of discounts, coverage customization options and digital resources, American Family can help you get the right policy and easy access to your coverage when you need it.
Keep Reading
Methodology
The SimpleScore is a proprietary scoring metric we use to objectively compare products and services at The Simple Dollar.
For every review, our editorial team:
- Identifies five measurable aspects to compare across each brand
- Determines the rating criteria for each aspect score
- Averages the five aspect scores to produce a single SimpleScore
Here’s a breakdown of the five aspect scores and their rating criteria for our reviews on home insurance.
Why do some brands have different SimpleScores on different pages?
To ensure the SimpleScore is as helpful and accurate as possible, we developed unique criteria for every category we compare at The Simple Dollar. Since most brands offer a variety of financial solutions, their products and services will score differently depending on what we’re scoring on a given page.
However, it’s also possible for the same product from the same brand to have multiple SimpleScores. For instance, if we compare State Farm’s home insurance according to our criteria for the best home insurance, it scores a 3.8 out of 5. But when we compare State Farm according to the criteria for the best auto insurance, it scores higher, since the features the company offers can vary by the type of insurance.
Discounts
We looked at the number of discounts each company offers – more discounts mean a higher score.
Coverage Options
We awarded higher scores to the companies that offer more coverage options.
Support
We awarded higher scores to companies with the most channels for customer support.
Customer Satisfaction
We leveraged the J.D. Power 2019 Home Insurance Satisfaction Study℠ to see how customers rated their experience with each company. (If a company wasn’t included in J.D. Power’s study, we skipped this aspect and averaged the four remaining aspect scores.)
Accessibility
We looked at the level of accessibility of each company – the more resources they have the higher their score
