Hippo Homeowners Insurance Review

You can get quoted in under a minute. With Hippo, gone are the days of pages and pages of answering granular questions about your home that you don't know the answer to. All you do is type in your address, and Hippo provides you a quote in a matter of seconds.

Multiple robust, modernized policy options. Hippo offers three high-quality policy tiers which you can choose from based on how much coverage you need for your home. And the best part is they're all fairly cheap—Hippo rates are actually lower the average provided quote with Policygenius.

Several coverage endorsements included in the base policy. Hippo includes a number of sought-after coverage add-ons, like equipment breakdown coverage, computers coverage, water backup coverage, service line coverage and others in the base policy. Very few companies offer as much coverage at as good a value as Hippo.

No option for filing claims online. One drawback of insuring your home with Hippo is you can't file insurance claims through their website—you need to call in your claims. Although Hippo provides a "concierge line" to take your claims, the lack of an online interface and end-to-end tracking could make it harder to track claims.

Only available in 20 states. Hippo homeowners insurance is currently only available in 20 states. While that may seem like a bad thing, keep in mind that this company is still less than 5 years old and is expanding by the day. If Hippo isn't yet available in your state, they most likely will be soon.

While the price of homeowners insurance with Hippo (and every company) will depend on factors lke where you live, your home's construction type, and the age of your home, you can expect to pay around $1,600 annually for coverage with Hippo, according to Policygenius data. That makes Hippo home insurance rates lower than the average quoted policy with Policygenius.

Rates are particularly impacted by your home's replacement cost, or the insured value of your home. Below is the average cost of homeowners insurance at different levels of coverage with Hippo.

Average annual homeowners insurance premiums for each coverage level were calculated using Policygenius quoting data.

Discounts

A great way to keep your homeowners insurance costs down is to take advantage of discount opportunities.

Some common discounts include protective devices discounts, claims-free discounts, and new home-buyer discounts. Hippo offers all of those discounts, plus discounts for belongings to an HOA and a discount getting your policy more than a week before it goes active.

• Protective devices discount - If your home has security and safety features like burglar alarms, fire alarms, fire sprinklers, and storm shutters
• Loss-free discount - If you go an extended period of time without filing a claim
• Early bird discount - If you purchase your policy at least a week in advance of it becoming active
• HOA discount - If you belong to a homeowners association
• New home purchase - If you bought your home within a year of the policy going active
• No mortgage discount - If you've already paid off your mortgage in its entirety

Homeowners insurance protects your most important financial assets, so you'll want to be sure you're insuring your home, your personal possessions, and other assets with a company that will be able to pay out your claim in the event of a disaster. Hippo hasn't been around long so it doesn't yet have ratings with such credit ratings agencies as S&P and Moody's. But they're backed by three distinguished and financially lucrative insurance companies in Spinnaker, TOPA, and Swiss Re. With Hippo, you can insure your home with confidence.

• Year founded: 2015
• Standard & Poor's rating: AA- (Swiss Re rating)
• Moody's rating: Aa3 (Swiss Re rating)
• A.M. Best rating: A+ (Swiss Re rating)

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. A AAA rating is the highest issuer credit rating assigned by S&P. Swiss Re—one of the companies that backs Hippo policies—has an AA- rating with S&P, one of the highest a company can receive.

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. Swiss Re has a Aa3 rating with Moody's, the fourth highest rating a company is eligible to receive.

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+, Swiss Re has the second highest rating a company can receive with A.M. Best.

It's important to know what experts think about homeowners insurance companies - but it's also good to know what actual customers and consumer sentiment sites are saying, too.

Hippo has excellent ratings with Consumer Advocate and the Better Business Bureau. Being such a new company, it doesn't yet have ratings with J.D. Power, TrustPilot, or Consumer Affairs.

• J.D. Power: N/A
• BBB: A+
• Consumer Affairs: N/A
• Consumers Advocate: 4.8 / 5
• Trustpilot: N/A
• NAIC complaint index: 0.84

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.

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. Hippo's 2018 score of 0.84 means they received less complaints than the average company.

Hippo offers three homeowners insurance coverage packages that provide all of the primary coverages: dwelling, other structures, personal property, loss-of-use, personal liability, and medical payments coverage.

Hippo's base policy includes extended replacement cost for the home and a number of additional coverages that most insurers don't offer. Hippo then features two higher tiers of homeowners insurance that include higher extended replacement cost limits and higher limits for certain coverage endorsements

Here's some of the highlights of each of the three coverage tiers with Hippo:

Hippo Essentials

• Standard coverage
• 25% extended replacement home coverage
• $100,000 in equipment backup coverage
• Domestic worker coverage
• $10,000 in service line coverage
• $8,000 in computer coverage
• $8,000 in home office coverage
• $5,000 in water backup coverage
• $2,000 in jewelry & watches coverage
• $200,000 in liability coverage

Hippo Best Value

• Everything that's included in the Essentials plan
• Replacement cost personal property coverage
• $10,000 water backup coverage
• $300,000 in liability coverage

Hippo Expanded Protection

• Everything that's included in the Best Value plan
• 50% extended replacement cost coverage
• $10,000 home office coverage
• $20,000 water backup coverage
• $500,000 liability coverage

Note: The information above represents potential policy options and may not be available for every applicant. Speak to a licensed expert for a personalized look at your coverage options.

Hippo coverage is limited to 20 states but continues to grow. Although they have impressive resources and digital tools available on their easy-to-use website, they lack an claims process.

State availability

Hippo homeowners insurance is available in 20 states.

Digital tools

• Online application
• Instant quote
• Online bill pay and policy management
• Customer service chat function on website

The application

The application process at Hippo is pretty remarkable, as they promise you a quote in under 60 seconds–and they’re not lying. All you need to do is type in your address, and Hippo almost immediately shoots back information about your home’s specs, including:

• The year it was built
• Square footage
• Roof type
• The age of your roof
• Family units
• Stories
• Whether or not your home has a swimming pool
• Construction type of the home

You're then given three quotes to choose from with varying levels of coverage.

Ease of claims

One of the few things you can't do online with Hippo is file a claim for losses. In fact, if this company is lacking in one area, it's the general lack of clarity for how the claims process actually works.

If you want to file a claim with Hippo, you need to dial their claims department indicated on their website. From there, you're assigned a claims advocate who manages your claim from beginning to end.

Additional claims service

• 24/7 claims service
• Dedicated claims representative

Payment methods

• Credit card
• Option to pay annually, twice a year, four times a year, or monthly (for an additional premium)