[ad_1]
Many auto insurance companies offer claims about providing excellent customer service, efficient claims processing, and good insurance coverage to the public. Some advertise the lowest available rates for insurance. All of these claims make it difficult to discern which company actually offers the best product. To help people sort through all of these companies, one organization has developed an auto insurance rating system.
This rating scale, which was created by J. D. Powers and Company, provides a comprehensive evaluation of the most popular insurance companies as seen by their clients. Each insurance company is scored on 5 different criteria, and given a rating in each area between 2 and 5, with 5 being the highest possible score.
The first criterion in which companies are scored is that of overall satisfaction. Customers are asked to offer their perspective on their overall experience with the identified company as being positive or negative. Although this can be helpful, it is more indicative of a company’s long-term relationship with the customer than with individual customer service and effectiveness issues.
Each company is also evaluated with respect to the variety of policies it offers, and how thoroughly each of these policies meets individual customers’ needs. This can assist prospective customers to evaluate the company’s flexibility, but a good company that provides only a few different types of policies is penalized if this method of rating is used.
Companies are also rated concerning pricing. Customers are asked whether they believe that the policy they have selected offers a good value for the money spent. This can be a good indicator of customer satisfaction; however, the scoring will be erroneous if some companies provide excellent policies at a higher cost. Customers who desire only basic insurance may not appreciate paying a higher premium for a higher quality of policy.
A fourth area that is used to rate companies is that of billing and payments. Customers are asked how promptly they feel their insurance statements are sent to them, and how streamlined the billing service is. This can be useful, especially if one company has extremely poor customer service or many billing problems are frequently problematic for its customers.
The last area in which companies are scored is in the customer’s individual interactions with company representatives. This criterion, which reflects customer service, is used to evaluate the agents, telephone representatives, and online support offered by the company.
Although these criteria are excellent in evaluating customer service, or potential service problems, they do not provide extensive information about other aspects of the insurance organization. Issues such as claims coverage and adequacy of insurance, billing reimbursement for repairs or medical expenses, or other problems are not addressed. While this system is not comprehensive, however, it does offer some system for rating the companies and assisting potential customers to consider which ones are most desirable. Although auto insurance rating systems are not 100 percent inclusive of all facets of a company, they can be very useful.
[ad_2]
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Auto-Insurance-Ratings—Help-or-Hindrance?&id=968529
