Disclaimer: We are not American Family Car Insurance Company. This American Family car insurance review is designed to help you decide if American Family is considered one of the best options and car insurance providers to work with.
This American Family Car Insurance Review is roughly a 5-minute read.
During our review, we will touch on several topics that can help you decide if American Family is a good car insurance company to choose such as the cost of coverage and available discounts.
To make things slightly more accessible and easier to navigate, we have created links directly below that will allow you to skip to any section of this review that you need further information about.
- Our American Family Car Insurance Review
- American Family Car Insurance History
- American Family Financial Strength
- BBB Ratings
- Coverages Offered by American Family
- Other Coverage Offered
- Cost of American Family Car Insurance
- Discounts Available with American Family
- Who Should Consider American Family Insurance?
- Rideshare Availability
- Pros of Working with American Family
- Cons of Working with American Family
- Final Thoughts
In addition to having the ability to read on for our full review, we also wanted to provide a quick-in-a-hurry overview of American Family Insurance Company for those of you in a time crunch.
Here is what you need to know.
American Family Insurance Company is an American Insurance Company offering midline car insurance coverage in the following states.
- Arizona
- Colorado
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oregon
- South Dakota
- Utah
- Washington
- Wisconsin
American Family is not known as the cheapest car insurance company you can choose.
However, American Family, if you can qualify for several discounts can give some of the top dog companies a run for their money.
Additionally, American Family does yield more complaints compared to other car insurance providers relative in size.
Overall, we recommend at least running a quote with American Family and finding out which discounts you can qualify for.
Outside of that, don’t limit your scope and miss comparing rates with other options.
That’s the most basic and essential information to know about American Family Insurance Company.
If, however, you want further details to decide if American Family is the company for you effectively, we recommend you read our full review below.
Here are the details.
Our American Family Car Insurance Review
American Family Insurance Company (AmFam) is considered a private mutual company that focuses its business model across several different lines of insurance that includes the following:
- Property and Casualty
- Auto
- Life
- Health
- Homeowners
Also, American Family also offers some investment and retirement planning related products.
As of 2019, American Family is considered a Fortune 500 American Insurance company with over 9 billion dollars in annual revenue.
American Family may not be considered one of the fiercest competitors compared to other popular options in the marketplace, but they could certainly be worth taking a glance at and running potential quotes with.
American Family Car Insurance History
American Family was initially founded back in 1927 by Herman Wittwer.
In 1927, American Family was referred to as Farmers Mutual Company.
Don’t get this confused with popular car insurance provider Farmers Insurance.
Two completely different companies.
In the early years, auto insurance was the only product American Family focused on and primarily targeted farmers due to their lower annual mileage driven and the smaller amount of risk involved.
This, in turn, allowed them to offer lower rates.
It wasn’t until 1963 that the American Family name was born.
Its most recent significant acquisition took place back in 2012 when American Family acquired another popular car insurance choice, The General.
American Family has also been recognized for several awards in the past decade, including being awarded as the most LGBT friendly insurance company by offering discounted rates for same-sex couples.
American Family Financial Strength
The financial strength of a car insurance provider is always something worth looking at.
Currently, American Family is considered an “A” rated company according to A.M. Best which is deemed to be excellent.
Additionally, American Family operates on a net income of more than 300,000 million per year and currently has more than 27 billion dollars of assets and employs more than 11,000.
BBB Ratings
BBB ratings provided to a car insurance provider often doesn’t give the entire story about the company.
It can, however, help consumers gauge how many negative complaints are being filed against the insurance provider and how often those complaints are filed.
As of 2019, American Family is currently considered an A+ in the eyes of the BBB.
However, a downfall you will find digging in further is that they are only being provided a 1 out of 5-star review based on 55 total reviews and are have closed more than 300 complaints in the past year.
While this isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, it’s certainly worth noting that they seem to yield more complaints than other car insurance providers relative in size.
Coverages Offered by American Family
When it comes to the car insurance coverages offered by car insurance companies, they often look like one another.
Especially for basic coverage options.
This is going to apply to American Family Insurance as well.
Here’s a look at their basic car insurance coverage lineup:
- Liability
- Uninsured Motorist Coverage
- Medical Payments (PIP)
- Collision Coverage
- Comprehensive Coverage
Other Coverage Offered
Where car insurance companies tend to distinguish themselves and stand out from the crowd is with other unique coverages offered.
With American Family, you have some secondary and additional coverage too choose from but keep in mind that many of these will cause your car insurance premiums to increase if you elect to use them.
GAP Insurance- Gap insurance helps the consumer to get the total value for their vehicle if they happen to be involved in an accident where the vehicle is totaled.
Accidental Death and Dismemberment- This coverage helps to provide a lump sum payout for insured’s and their spouse if they are killed in a vehicle accident.
Rental Car Coverage- Covers the cost of renting a vehicle while your damaged vehicle undergoes repairs.
Roadside Assistance- Covers the cost to have roadside assistance for issues such as flat tires, broken glass or a dead battery.
In addition, American Family also offers coverage for the following:
- Motorcycle Coverage
- ATV Coverage
- RV Coverage
- Boat Coverage
- Snowmobile Coverage
Basically, anything that has a motor, you can rely on American Family to cover it.
Cost of American Family Car Insurance
Now is when it’s time to reveal what everyone wants to know.
How much does American Family cost for car insurance?
Unfortunately, American Family is not known for being the cheapest car insurance company for most consumers.
Compared to other top competitors such as Geico Insurance Company, State Farm Insurance Company, and even Progressive, American Family will likely be more costly.
However, American Family is known to offer significant discounts for car insurance.
If you can obtain several of these discounts, American Family may be a front-runner for the best and cheapest car insurance near you.
Discounts Available with American Family
American Family offers one of the healthier lineups we have seen for car insurance coverage.
Here’s a look at the discount options and possibilities:
Multi-Vehicle Discount- Applies when you insure more than two vehicles with AmFam.
Loyalty Discount- Applied for Switching from Another Company and being insured with AmFam for more than 12 months.
Early Bird Discount- Purchase coverage within 7 days of getting your quote and receive this discount.
Multi-Product Discount- This discount can be applied when you bundle other lines of insurance together, such as homeowners.
Steer into Savings Discount- This is another discount available when you switch from a competitor to AmFam auto insurance.
Generational Discount- Applied when you have parents currently insured with AmFam.
Auto Equipment Discount- Applied to the vehicle with factory-installed airbags.
Defensive Driver Discount- Applied for taking a defensive driving course and if you are over the age of 55.
Good Driving Discount- Applied if you are accident-free for more than 12 months.
Low Mileage Discount- Applied if you drive less than 7500 miles per year.
Personally, this is one of our favorite discounts to see larger car insurance companies offer.
It’s very comparable to shopping rates with other popular low mileage auto insurance options such as Root Insurance and Metromile.
Good Student Discount- Applied to high school or college drivers that maintain a B or better grade average.
Away at School Discount- Applied if your child is more than 100 miles away at school.
Young Volunteer Discount- Another unique discount to AmFam that can be applied if you achieve 40 hours of volunteer work.
AutoPay Discount- Applied if you have your payments auto-deducted from your bank account.
Paid in Full Discount- Applied if you pay your entire year’s premiums upfront.
Paperless Discount- Applied if you enroll into e-delivery opposed to hard copy mailed statements.
Who Should Consider American Family Insurance?
Like stated previously, American Family isn’t necessarily a bad route to take.
However, American Family becomes much more competitive when you can qualify for several discounts.
If this is the case for you, we highly recommend you run rates and see what kind of potential savings you may be able to accomplish.
Rideshare Availability
This is another bright spot about American Family.
They are offering rideshare car insurance coverage and seem to be on a trend on expanding this coverage.
It currently has limited availability, but if you do drive for Uber or Lyft, you are always in better shape having additional coverage.
Other companies that do a great job offering this coverage include the following:
- Erie Insurance
- Geico Insurance Company
- State Farm Insurance Company
Pros of Working with American Family
We can typically always find a few unique strengths and weaknesses of a car insurance provider.
With American Family, here is what we believe to be their biggest strengths.
- Great Discount Options
- Competitive Pricing If Discounts Are Applied
- Long History and Strong Financial Strength
Cons of Working with American Family
On the flip side, here is what we believe to be the most significant disadvantages of working with American Family.
- Limited State Availability
- More than Average Number of Consumer Complaints
- Cheaper Car Insurance Companies Are Available
Final Thoughts
No matter how good a car insurance company may look through an online review such as this, you still need to weigh all your options carefully.
Always review and run rates/quotes with a half dozen car insurance companies before making your final decision.
Ultimately this ensures you are being provided the best pricing, coverage, and discounts for your money.
Good luck during your search.
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