A friend is shopping for homeowner’s insurance for a pending purchase in state of GA. Any GA Dopers have good experiences with a company who’s name you’d care to share? Anyone to avoid?
When we were stationed in Middle GA we had no issues w/ Auto-Owners Insurance; they were prompt when needed and went btwn homeowner’s and landlord/tenant insurance w/ no apparent difficulty over the course of a decade.
I use Traveler’s, which was the GEICO affiliate (I have GEICO for my auto insurance). I’ve only made one claim but it was handled without any issues.
Honestly though, as regulated as the insurance business is, I don’t think there’s any difference between any of the big players. There are going to be horror stories and over-the-top great stories about any insurance company. Really at this point the dividing factor is the rate and the service offered. Either really cheap but covers very specific damages, or really pricey but covers everything.
I have used State Farm through a local agent for over 30 years. My parents and my grandparents had homeowners policies through the same agent. While probably not the cheapest insurance available, none of us ever had any problems with customer service of claim payments.
My friend got a handful of quotes, including the companies mentioned here. Yellowjacketcoder, your observation seems to be just about spot on based on what my friend told me after reviewing his quotes. Not a huge amount of variance in price with similar coverages, so just a question of choosing what the priority is for you, cost or super-coverage. For his needs, Traveler’s had the second-best price for HOI alone but ultimately he opted for AllState as they had a better deal on bundling with auto insurance too. Thanks for the replies!