How To Find Complaints Against Insurance Companies

Looking for complaints about an insurance company before applying for coverage can tell you a lot and may even influence your decision.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners collects complaint data about insurers from the states and posts it on its website. You may learn how a company’s complaints compare to those of other insurers of comparable size, as well as the nature of the complaints.

Complaints on the NAIC website include:

• Auto insurance for personal (private passenger) and commercial purposes
• Homeowners Insurance
• Life insurance, individual or group policies
• Health insurance, either individual policies or group coverage through an employer

Here’s how to find complaints about an insurer.

Step 1: Search by insurance company name

1. Visit the NAIC’s Consumer Insurance Search.
2. In the “Company Name” field, enter the name of an insurance business.
3. Under the “Insurance Type” option, select the type of insurance for which you want to locate complaints, such as “auto,” “homeowners,” or “life.”Using “all” can produce a large number of extra results, so it’s better to be specific here.

Step 2: Choose the right subsidiary

The website may display you multiple companies with identical names. Here are some tips for determining the proper company name:

• For an insurance you already use, find the relevant subsidiary name on one of your policy documents.
• The NAIC designates a state for each subsidiary’s headquarters. The proper subsidiary on the list should be in the same state as the address listed on your insurer’s policy paperwork or website.
• Some insurers provide their NAIC firm numbers on their websites. That should correspond to a number listed in your search results.

Step 3: Choose a report option

When you’ve found the subsidiary name you’re looking for, check its complaint list. The NAIC offers several report alternatives. The Complaint Code Report is likely to be the most useful.

To get the report, click the “Click for Report Options” link, then “Go to Complaints Code Report.”

You can select how you want to read complaints, including by:

• Type of coverage.
• Reason for the complaint.
• Disposition (What happened to the complaints).

From there, you can filter your results further:

1. Click the “I want to see complaints for” option and choose your state, or “All” for a national report.
2. Choose “Insured” from the “I want to see complaints submitted by the following” dropdown menu.
3. Use the “Year” dropdown to select the year from which you wish to see complaints. 

Your state may also have complaint data

Your state’s insurance department may also have complaint data organized by year. A Reliableinsurance study ranked state insurance departments based on their helpfulness. Within that page, you can select your state to see if it provides online complaint information, and then go through to your state’s insurance department website. You can also submit a complaint with your state insurance department or verify if insurers and agents are licensed.

Common complaints against insurers

In addition to giving insurer-specific complaint percentages and counts, the NAIC offers industry-wide snapshots of the most common complaints. There are three reports:

• Reasons for the complaint.
• Complaints organized by kind of insurance.
• Disposition, or what happened to the complaints.

Across insurance kinds, the top complaints include:

• Delays in processing claims
• Denied claims
• unsatisfactory claim settlement offers

Other common complaints are for problems such as:

• Insurers canceling or not renewing policies.
• Surcharges
• Premiums, or billing
• Questions that are answered inadequately, late, or never at all.
• Request for refunds