As mentioned in our earlier post on the complaint ratios for the Top 20 Private Passenger Automobile Insurance companies, the Division of Insurance received 23,294 calls to its insurance consumer hotline in 2010 (the last year for which the data is available.) As Agency Checklists wrote in its first article on the Division of Insurance’s Consumer Hotline, one in every 12 of those calls constituted a formal insurance complaint. While auto insurance complaint calls topped the list, the Division did receive complaints calls involving consumer’s homeowner’s insurance.
Complaint Ratios*
The Division calculates these ratios by comparing the share of complaints filed against a company to that company’s market share. The DOI says it “…then normalizes the figure to a ratio of $10 million in premium written in order to control for the different levels of market share.”
For the homeowner’s insurance market, however, the Division grouped together complaints from a five year period: 2006-2010. As it explained, “Unlike the automobile insurance market, the homeowner’s insurance contains a large number of carriers with comparatively small market shares.”
2006-2010 Homeowner’s Insurance Complaints and Market Share
Homeowner’s Insurance Companies & Mass FAIR Plan |
Premium Share in 2010 |
Complaints Filed in 2010 |
Complaints per $10,000,000 in Premium |
| Massachusetts Property Insurance & Underwriting Association |
13.56% |
144 |
1.13 |
| Commerce Insurance Group |
9.12% |
65 |
0.76 |
| Liberty Mutual Group |
6.77% |
56 |
0.88 |
| Travelers |
6.64% |
48 |
0.77 |
| Chubb& Son Inc. Group |
6.52% |
10 |
0.16 |
| Andover Group |
6.51% |
41 |
0.67 |
| Arbella Insurance Group |
5.07% |
31 |
0.65 |
| Quincy Mutual Group |
4.41% |
27 |
0.65 |
| Safety Group |
3.62% |
21 |
0.61 |
| Vermont Mutual Group |
3.24% |
27 |
0.88 |
| The Hanover Insurance Group |
2.73% |
8 |
0.31 |
| Amica Mutual Group |
2.68% |
9 |
0.36 |
| Metropolitan Group |
2.61% |
14 |
0.57 |
| Norfolk & Dedham Group |
2.42% |
17 |
0.75 |
| United Services Automobile Association |
2.37% |
6 |
0.27 |
| New London County Group |
2.18% |
21 |
1.02 |
| Plymouth Rock Insurance Group |
1.79% |
15 |
0.89 |
| Preferred Mutual Insurance Company |
1.64% |
24 |
1.55 |
| Barnstable Group |
1.52% |
3 |
0.21 |
| Allianz Insurance Group |
1.42% |
3 |
0.22 |
| Zurich Insurance Group |
1.25% |
8 |
0.68 |
| Main Street America Group |
1.14% |
3 |
0.28 |
| White Mountains Group |
1.10% |
13 |
1.26 |
| Tower Group |
1.06% |
3 |
0.30 |
| Providence Group |
0.95% |
14 |
1.57 |
| Harleysville Group |
0.91% |
4 |
0.47 |
| Remainder of Market (59 Companies\Groups) |
6.77% |
85 |
1.33 |
*Facts and Figures courtesy of The Massachusetts Division of Insurance
