American Family Car Insurance Review

As one of the largest auto insurance providers in the country, American Family Insurance offers customers a variety of coverage options and discounts. The company has nearly 3,000 local agents in 19 states, but policyholders can also utilize its website and mobile app to purchase coverage, manage payments and file claims.

Who It’s Best For:

• Teenage and newer drivers, as they can receive discounts
• Families and individuals with multiple vehicles
• People who wish to bundle their home and auto insurance policies
• Drivers with spotless and spotty driving records

Who It’s Not Best For:

• Military and government employees, as American Family Insurance does not offer discounts
• People who live in states American Family Insurance does not cover:
  • Alabama
  • Alaska
  • Arkansas
  • California
  • Connecticut
  • Delaware
  • Florida
  • Hawaii
  • Kentucky
  • Louisiana
  • Maine
  • Maryland
  • Massachusetts
  • Michigan
  • Mississippi
  • Montana
  • New Hampshire
  • New Jersey
  • New Mexico
  • New York
  • North Carolina
  • Oklahoma
  • Pennsylvania
  • Rhode Island
  • South Carolina
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Vermont
  • Virginia
  • West Virginia
  • Wyoming

• Bodily injury liability: Most states require liability coverage, which pays for costs related to injuries you cause to your passengers, the driver and passengers of the other vehicle and pedestrians. This includes their medical expenses, lost wages, legal fees, pain and suffering and funeral costs.¹
• Property damage liability: Like bodily injury liability, property damage liability covers the cost of repairing another person’s property damaged in accidents you caused, such as their vehicle, fence or yard.
• Collision: Collision insurance pays for repairs to your vehicle when it is damaged in an accident, whether or not you are at fault. No state requires collision coverage, but we recommend it.
• Comprehensive: American Family Insurance’s comprehensive coverage encompasses all damages not from collisions, such as weather incidents, theft, vandalism or hitting animals.
• Medical payments coverage (MedPay): While liability coverage covers the medical expenses of the other party when you are at fault, medical payments insurance covers you and any passengers in your vehicle at the time of the accident.² If you’re struck while walking, running or riding your bike, you’re covered too.
• Personal injury protection (PIP) coverage: Drivers in no-fault states must have personal injury protection as part of their auto insurance coverage. After an accident, each driver is responsible for their medical bills or lost wages, regardless of who is at fault.
• Emergency road service: American Family Insurance’s emergency road service starts at $15 a year and grants you towing, tire replacements, battery jump-starts, locksmith services and other services.
• Rental car reimbursement: If your car is damaged in an accident and is being repaired under a covered claim, American Family’s rental car reimbursement helps defray the costs of a rental car. This policy also covers rideshare services, taxis and mass transit.
• Gap insurance: Gap insurance pays the difference between the amount you owe on the car and the total cost to replace it with a new vehicle. This means that, in the event of a total loss, you won’t be left to cover that hefty auto loan or lease bill all on your own. Most loan providers and lessors require gap insurance.
• Rideshare insurance: If you drive for Uber or Lyft, you can add American Family’s rideshare insurance to your personal auto policy. This fills a coverage gap while you’re waiting for or en route to pick up customers, so you’re fully insured the entire time the app is on.

The average annual cost of an American Family Insurance policy is $1,371, which is below the annual average rate of $1,442. To find out your exact rate, however, you’ll need to contact the company directly and provide your personal information.

Your rate will depend on various factors, including your driving history, age and location. For example, rates for teen drivers are higher than rates for adult drivers, typically. Below you’ll find a breakdown of how age, driving history and credit scores may impact your annual cost:

American Family Insurance offers a variety of discounts that can cut the cost of your insurance rates.

Standard Discounts

• Multivehicle: Get a discounted rate when you insure multiple cars with AmFam.
• Loyalty: This discount is available if you’ve used American Family for at least five years. The longer you stay a loyal customer, the better your discount could be.
• Early bird: You can qualify for this discount if you already have an active policy with another company, then receive an AmFam quote at least a week before your new policy goes into effect.
• Multiproduct: This discount reduces coverage for those who use AmFam for more than one kind of insurance, such as auto and home.

Safe Driving Discounts

• Auto safety equipment: American Family offers a discount on insurance for cars with factory-installed airbags.
• Defensive driver: In some states, you might qualify for a discount if you are 55 or older and complete an approved defensive driving course.
• Good driving: If you have a clean driving record ― no accidents, violations or claims ― for at least five years, it could reduce the cost of your insurance policy.
• Low mileage: Policyholders who drive 7,500 miles per year or less might qualify for this discount.
• Accident forgiveness: If you go five years without an at-fault accident, American Family offers accident forgiveness at no cost.
• Know Your Drive: You can save up to 20 percent on your auto policy by signing up for the Know Your Drive app. The app uses your phone’s accelerometer, gyroscope and GPS systems to sense your driving. It monitors actions like speeding, hard braking and distracted driving, such as making a phone call or sending a text. Your rate won’t go up for unsafe driving, however.

Young Driver Discounts

• Good student: If you maintain good grades at school, it could reduce your rate. To qualify, you must be enrolled full-time in high school, college, an online schooling program or technical school, maintain a B average (3.0 GPA) or rank in the top 20 percent of your class. If you are homeschooled, you can qualify for this discount if you score in the top 20 percent on the SAT or ACT exams.
• Away at school: If you or your college-aged child are away at a school that’s 100 miles or more from home and your car is parked at home, you could get a discount.
• Young volunteer: If you are under 25 and complete at least 40 hours of volunteer work per year for a nonprofit organization, you could qualify for a discounted rate.
• Generational: If your parents have coverage with American Family Insurance, then you could save on your policy.
• Teen Safe Driver app: Designed specifically for young drivers up to age 21, the Teen Safe Driver app tracks distracted driving and other unsafe behaviors to encourage better habits. The app runs in the background waiting for driving-like behavior, such as change of speed or location, to record.

  The app processes this data and shows the route you took, the distance and time you drove, evaluating actions like distracted driving, high speeds, hard braking and time of day. You can get a discount of up to 10 percent once you participate for at least 3,000 miles or one year, whichever comes first. Learn more about teen distracted driving.

Billing Discounts

• Auto pay: If you enroll in automatic payments, it can reduce your rate.
• Customer full pay: You can get a discount for paying your premium in full.
• Paperless: American Family also offers a discount for customers who enroll in online billing.

American Family Insurance is available in 19 states:

• Arizona
• Colorado
• Georgia
• Idaho
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• Nebraska
• Nevada
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Oregon
• South Dakota
• Utah
• Washington
• Wisconsin

Despite the limited availability, American Family Insurance employs nearly 3,000 agents in the United States, with an average of 158 agents per state. If a local agent is the most important factor to you, American Family Insurance makes it easy to find one in your area with its online agent locator tool.

American Family Insurance gives you plenty of options when you need to contact the customer service team. The company’s representatives are available 24/7 over the phone, by email, live chat and by mail.

American Family Insurance’s mobile app, MyAmFam, has a rating of 4.8 out of five stars from iOS users and 4.2 from Android users. On American Family Insurance’s website and app, you can:

• Make a payment
• Submit a claim
• Report an incident
• Review policy documents and insurance cards, such as proof of insurance
• Request roadside assistance
• Get a quote

• BBB rating: American Family Insurance has an A rating from the BBB as of January 2023.³ While the company as a whole is not BBB-accredited, local agencies might be.
• BBB customer rating: Although American Family Insurance’s BBB rating is high, its customer rating is only 1.16 out of five stars. We found that the most common complaints have to do with agents, customer service and claims adjusters being difficult to get in touch with or generally unhelpful. Customers complained about a lack of transparency in the claims process and premiums being too high. However, we take this rating with a grain of salt as people use BBB to complain, for the most part.
• J.D. Power U.S. Auto Insurance Study: The 2022 J.D. Power U.S. Auto Insurance Study looked at customer satisfaction with auto insurance companies across 11 geographical regions. American Family Insurance had a score of 838 out of 1,000, which is better than the national average score of 834 out of 1,000 and achieved a top-three ranking in the California, Central and Southwest regions.⁴
• NAIC Complaint Index Score: The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) index measures how many complaints are filed versus how many insurance premiums are written; the lower the score, the better. As of January 2023, American Family Insurance’s overall NAIC Complaint Index Score was 0.61, which means it has received fewer complaints than the average car insurance provider.

Founded in October 1927 as Farmers Mutual Insurance by Herman Wittwer in Madison, Wisconsin, American Family Insurance’s first product was auto insurance and its target market was Midwestern farmers. Wittwer believed farmers presented lower risks than city drivers because they drove less often and not at all in the winter.

In 1963, Farmers Mutual changed its name to American Family Insurance to reflect its growing customer base. Since then, the company has greatly expanded its offerings and, as of 2021, it had more than 13.1 million policies in force.

In addition to auto insurance, American Family Insurance provides a wide range of coverage for other insurable properties, including:

• Property insurance: Homeowners, renters, landlords, mobile homes, condos and flood
• Business insurance: Business owners, workers’ compensation, commercial auto, medical malpractice, general, professional and cyber
• Miscellaneous insurances: Pet, jewelry, identity protection, travel, overseas, life and umbrella

Cancellation

The easiest way to cancel a policy with American Family Insurance is to call your local agent or the customer service team at (800) 692-6326. The customer service representative can direct you to your local agent or submit a cancellation request form to your agent on your behalf.

While we like that American Family Insurance ranks above average with third-party sources such as J.D. Power (874 out of 1000) and the BBB (A rating), we found that it often falls below competitors like Allstate or Farmers when it comes to customer satisfaction.

Some complaints from the BBB about American Family center on poor customer service and a lack of transparency as reflected in its customer rating of 1.16 out of five stars. Keep in mind that many insurance companies have low customer ratings on BBB as people mostly come there to complain. For example, Allstate Insurance has a higher rating from the BBB (A+), but its average customer rating is lower than American Family’s at 1.09 out of five stars.

J.D. Power derives its annual rankings from a survey of more than 8,000 drivers, which could be a better indicator of overall satisfaction than the BBB’s much smaller pool of customer ratings. Compared to the industry average ranking of 873 out of 1,000 points, American Family scored slightly higher at 874.

While this is good, it’s much lower than Allstate’s (889 out of 1,000) or Farmers’ (882 out of 1,000). If customer satisfaction is your top priority when shopping for auto insurance, you may want to take these ratings into account and look at insurance quotes from other companies.

American Family is a good choice if you’re looking for affordable auto insurance. The average cost of coverage with American Family is $1,371, which is below the industry average of $1,442 and significantly cheaper than Allstate ($1,673) and Farmers ($1,878). AmFam also offers discounts for policyholders and their family members, but the company does not offer discounts for military members. If that is important to you, consider other insurance providers like Farmers, GEICO or Liberty Mutual.

In terms of availability, American Family is more limited compared to its competitors. If there’s a chance you might move to a state that American Family does not cover, we suggest purchasing auto insurance from a company with coverage in all 50 states, like GEICO, State Farm or Progressive.