In a new FAQ published on OnlineAutoInsurance.com, the writers call checking on a company’s license status and reputation as being two of the most important things that motorists should do when shopping for a policy. Luckily, most consumers can do both of those things through their state’s insurance department website. These sites generally have license lookups and complaint reports containing information on the majority of coverage providers in the state.
The Texas reports, however, are laid out slightly different than in most states. Most reports list the complaint index/ratio as the total number of justified complaints divided by total premiums written by a company or by total policies issued by a company. This is still the case in the Texas report, but rather than listing that raw ratio, the creators of the report list the ratio relative to the average for all auto insurers operating in the state that year.
So, when an insurer has a complaint index of 1, it means it received the average number of complaints per policy that year. A number higher than 1 indicates that that company’s complaint rate was higher than average.
In 2010, dozens of auto insurers had complaint indexes of 0. There was one insurer that had an index of 8,048, but that was because the company received one valid complaint for the one policy it had in place last year.
To access the full FAQ, visitors can follow the “Questions” link located at the top of any page on the site.
