• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 10 hours ago

Their humorous commercials have propelled a handful of car insurance companies to the top of their industry, but in an ironic twist, they rank among the lowest in customer satisfaction, according to Consumer Reports.

Everybody knows them from their commercials -- Geico, Progressive, Liberty Mutual, Farmers, Allstate and State Farm.

CR’s rankings, published last April in its annual auto issue, lists 36 car insurers. Of the six cited above, State Farm ranked the highest at 19th.

Allstate, whose commercials feature the wild and crazy character known as “Mayhem” (played by Dean Winters), is ranked 26th out of 36. Geico, home of the famous Geico gecko, is 29th.

Progressive is ranked 30th in CR customer satisfaction. The insurer may have the biggest load of commercials on TV of all of its competitors with two commercial series -- one featuring the “Flo” character (Stephanie Courtney) and the other featuring the self-help counselor “Dr. Rick” (Bill Glass) who tries to help young homeowners who are turning into their parents (video above).

Liberty Mutual, branded as “Limu” in its spots featuring the Limu Emu and Doug (David Hoffman), is 32nd out of 36 in CR. 

Last among the big insurers is Farmers, known for its famous jingle “We are Farmers …” Farmers is ranked 34th in CR.

Their commercials are entertaining, but the customer experience is not, according to CR’s survey.

The magazine’s ratings “are based on 50,129 responses from 40,566 U.S. adult insurance policyholders asked about their experiences with their current and previous auto insurance companies,” says CR.

“The Overall Satisfaction Score reflects weighted ratings on multiple measures, including prices paid for premiums, claims settlements, breadth of coverage, the contract’s policy, clarity, help and advice regarding policy choices, the thoroughness of information provided during policy review, and customer service that isn’t related to claims,” the mag says.

All of the big car insurers got the survey’s worst ratings on the subject of premiums. 

Customer service got thumbs down for four of them -- Geico, Progressive, Liberty Mutual and Farmers.

Coverage fell short for Liberty Mutual and Farmers. Both of those insurers received negative ratings for help and advice, and policy review.

Despite these results, these companies all top the market-share list of all car insurers, starting with State Farm -- the biggest in the business with an 18.6% market share, according to MarketWatch.

Progressive runs a close second with 18%. Geico is third with 11.56%; Allstate, fourth, 10.15%; Farmers, sixth, with 3.57%; and Liberty Mutual, seventh, with 2.81%.

In fifth place is USAA, the insurer that offers its policies exclusively to members of the military, veterans and their families. USAA has a 6.19% market share. 

It is the only one of the top seven that does not rely on commercials with a humorous bent. 

It also happens to rank fifth overall on CR’s customer-satisfaction list. It is also recommended by CR, which for products and companies in all of the industries CR covers, is the holy grail.

The rest of CR’s top six, all of which earned recommendations, were Erie Insurance Group (1), NJM Insurance Group (2), Amica Mutual Group (3), NYCM Insurance Group (4), and The Cincinnati Insurance Companies (6).