Top Five Insurance Complaints
by National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - According to data released by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), the top three reasons consumers filed formal complaints against their insurance companies were delays, denials of claims and unsatisfactory settlement offers. Premium/insurance rating and policy cancellation issues completed the top five.

The NAIC collected the data through its centralized electronic Complaint Database System (CDS), through which states voluntarily report "closed" complaints. A closed complaint is a complaint that has been investigated and resolved to the satisfaction of the state or jurisdiction in which it is filed. First established in 1990, the CDS was significantly expanded in 1998 and now houses data on more than 2 million complaints.

A total of 195,669 confirmed consumer complaints on insurance companies were reported to the CDS in the calendar year. This information is based on the submission of data to the NAIC from the state insurance departments. The CDS is continually updated, as new information is received from the states on an ongoing basis. The NAIC does not collect all complaint data from all states.

Aggregate data compiled from the CDS can be accessed on the NAIC's Web site through the Consumer Information Source. By accessing this program, consumers can obtain company-specific complaint ratios (the ratio of the company's market share of complaints compared to the company's market share of premiums for a specific policy type), as well as aggregate counts of complaints by state and by type of coverage for specific companies.

Below are charts detailing the top five types of complaints and the top five complained about types of insurance coverage. The charts include the total number of complaints (for complaint type and line of coverage), followed by the percentage of overall complaints each type represents. (For example, "denial of claim" comprised 18.4 percent of all complaints received by the NAIC.

Top Five Reasons for Complaints


Delays 19.1%
26,844

Denial of Claim 18.4%
25,851

Unsatisfactory Settlement/Offer 14.2%
20,021

Premium and Rating 4.7%
6,644

Cancellation 4.0%
5,618

Top Five Complaints by Type of Coverage


Accident and Health 36.9%
72,351

Auto36.7%
71,967

Homeowners 11.8%
23,212

Life and Annuity 9.5%
18,594

Commercial Multi-Peril 1.9%
3,741