Acuity Homeowners Insurance Review

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Acuity

OVERALL

8.0

THE GOOD

Guaranteed replacement cost home coverage

Affordable, flexible policy options

THE BAD

Acuity home insurance is only available in 27 states

Coverage might not cut it if you have lots of valuables

THE BOTTOM LINE

Acuity offers one of the more comprehensive but affordable home insurance products on the market today. Acuity offers guaranteed replacement cost for your home, meaning they’ll pay to repair or rebuild it regardless the cost.

Cost

9.0

Confidence

8.8

Customer ratings

8.0

Policy options

6.5

Customer experience

7.8

ACUITY COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

N/A

J.D. Power Rating

A trusted customer satisfaction and product quality research agency

A+

BBB Rating

A nonprofit organization focusing on marketplace trust and product quality

A+

A.M. Best

100-year-old U.S. credit rating agency focused on the insurance industry

The Bottom Line

Your home is your most valuable asset, and you want to make sure you have the best homeowners insurance to protect it. Acuity has an A+ rating with A.M. Best — the benchmark for insurance companies’ financial strength — and glowing insurance claims reviews on Trustpilot. Acuity also offers numerous discount options, like a 20% discount if you bundle your home insurance with another Acuity property insurance policy, along with a hefty discount if you pay your insurance premiums up front.

The Details

The Good

Guaranteed replacement cost home coverage. Acuity is one of the few carriers that offers guaranteed replacement cost for your home, meaning they’ll pay to repair or rebuild it regardless the cost.

Affordable, flexible policy options. In terms of policy value, Acuity is among the top insurance companies out there. Whether you need a basic policy for your home or something more robust with multiple coverage enhancements and add-ons, you'll find it with Acuity.

The Bad

Acuity home insurance is only available in 27 states. Acuity is only available in 27 states, which is rather sparse when you consider the company’s been around for almost a century.

Coverage might not cut it if you have lots of valuables. If you have a lot of expensive valuables, Acuity’s Coverage Enhancements Plus endorsement (which you can get for an extra $60 a year) may not be enough coverage for all of your stuff. The maximum they’ll pay out with that endorsement for jewelry, for example, is $3,500.

Cost

9.0

The price of home insurance varies widely and depends on your state, ZIP code, and the specifics of your home. Acuity homeowners insurance actually costs less, on average, than the average quoted policy with Policygenius. The average annual premium for homes with Acuity insurance was $1,257, according to Policygenius data.

Discounts

One way to ensure you're getting the best rates on homeowners insurance is to take advantage of any discounts your insurer offers.

Common discounts include bundling discounts for combining policies and discounts for owning a newer home or paying your premiums in full.

• Paid-in-full discount - Generous discount when you pay for all your home insurance premiums for the year up front

• Bundling discount - Get a 20% discount when you combine your home, auto, or umbrella insurance with Acuity

• Fire protection systems discount - Earn discounts if your home has smoke and fire alarms

• Smart home systems discount - Discount if your home is fitted with an advanced security system or smart home device

• Newer home discount - If you’re insuring a newer home, you may be eligible for a newer home discount with Acuity

• Mature homeowner discount - If you’ve owned a home for a certain number of years, Acuity will trim your rates

Confidence

8.8

Because you rely on homeowner's insurance to product your most valuable assets, it's important that the company is fiscally stable and will be able to pay out your claim if necessary.

• Year founded: 1925

• Standard & Poor's rating: A+

• Moody's rating: N/A

• A.M. Best rating: A+

Standard & Poor's measures companies' creditworthiness and is used primarily by financial investors and other market stakeholders. S&P is also valuable in measuring the long-term financial stability of insurance companies. An AAA rating is the highest issuer credit rating assigned by S&P. Acuity's rating of A+ still puts it in a relatively strong financial position.

Moody's is very similar to Standard & Poors, except rather than measuring a companies ability to remain financial stable and creditworthy, Moody's measures what the expected losses would be if a company were to go into default. It's particularly valuable in analyzing the value of stocks and bonds with certain companies. A AAA rating is the highest possible score you can receive from Moody's. Acuity does not currently have a rating with Moody's.

A.M. Best is the most reliable credit-rating tool insureds can use to gauge the financial health of a particular company. Unlike S&P and Moody's, A.M. Best is focused exclusively on the insurance marketplace. A good score with A.M. Best means a company is more likely to fulfill their financial obligation to you when it comes time to file a claim. With a score of A+, Acuity has the second-highest rating an insurance company can receive with A.M. Best.

Customer ratings

10.0

One of the best indicators of the quality of a given homeowners insurance company is customer feedback. That's why third-party sites that rate customer experience are a vauable tool for researching insurers.

Acuity doesn't have a score with J.D. Power, but scores well with the Better Business Bureau, Trustpilot, Consumers Advocate, and it's also had relatively few customer complaints according to the NAIC complaint index.

• J.D. Power: N/A

• BBB: A+

• Consumer Affairs: N/A

• Trustpilot: 4.5 / 5

• Consumers Advocate: 3.5 / 5

• NAIC complaint index: 0.3

J.D. Power provides studies that rate insurance companies across policy offerings, price, clarity of billing and policy information, interaction, and claims. An overall satisfaction score, "based on how customers view every experience of their experience with homeowners insurance providers" is reflected here and used for our ranking.

The Better Business Bureau ranks companies across a large swath of criteria. While consumers can submit ratings to the BBB, these scores are not taken into account in their rating, although tangential metrics that take into account customer experience are.

Consumer Affairs is a platform that lets consumers directly rate customers, while Consumers Advocate rates companies based on stability, reputation, and policy coverage.

Trustpilot is a consumer review website that allows users to award businesses a score out of 5 along with a written review. Companies are then awarded an aggregate score out of 5 based on collected reviews.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners tracks the number of complaints submitted to state insurance departments with their national complain index. A score of 1 is the baseline average, and a score of 0 means there weren't enough complaints to count. Acuity's score of 0.3 means it receives fewer than average complaints.

Policy options

6.5

Acuity keeps their policy offerings fairly simple, offering a standard home insurance policy with the six core coverages. But Acuity also has a number of cheap policy add-ons and coverage endorsements that are more than worth the extra few dollars a month, such as:

• Guaranteed replacement cost dwelling coverage

• Replacement cost contents coverage

• A bundled endorsement package that provides extended personal property protection and services (like lock replacement) to your policy

• Water backup coverage

• Jewelry coverage

• Identity theft coverage

Customer experience

7.8

Acuity is available in 27 states. The application and claims process are fast and easy and can be done online in their entirety.

State availability

Acuity homeowners insurance is available in 27 states and is mostly concentrated in the middle of the country.

Digital tools

• Acuity mobile app

• Web application

• Web policy management and bill pay

• Web claims portal

The application

Acuity’s application process is fairly seamless and can be completed fully online. You simply plug in your personal information, answer a few questions about your home, indicate whether or not you’d like to bundle your home insurance with any of Acuity’s other insurance options, and out comes a quote.

Once you’re at the quote page, you have the option of customizing the policy to your liking, depending on if you want more or less coverage. If you make any changes, Acuity will generate you a new quote in seconds so you can see how adding or forgoing certain coverages can affect your policy cost.

Ease of claims

If you’d like to file a claim with Acuity, you have a few options. You can call their claims center, file a claim through their website, or report the loss through their mobile app.

As for the quality of their claims service, Acuity makes a few promises that you can hold them to. According to the company website, Acuity guarantees the following:

• Calls answered in 15 seconds or less

• Single point of contact on every claim

• 24/7, 365 days a year claims service

• Same-day contact

Policygenius offers insurance policies from many of the nation's top insurers, who pay us a commission for our services. However, all editorial choices are made independently.