Nationwide Homeowners Insurance Review

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The Details

The Good

Flexible policies for a wide range of homes and budgets. Nationwide's several coverage options and endorsements can help almost any homeowner find the type of protection they need without accidentally overinsuring themselves.

Multiple discount opportunities. Another feature that helps give Nationwide an edge over some of its competitors? A wide range of available discounts, including discounts for having a newer roof, or one that's specifically wind and hail resistant; discounts for living in a gated community; and discounts if you were insured by your previous carrier for a number of consecutive years.

Simple online application and claims process. Nationwide's online quote generator is intuitive and easy to use for shoppers. For its customers, the claims process is similarly streamlined. While Nationwide only scores about average for claims satisfaction, it wins convenience points for making it easy to submit claims online or through the mobile app.

The Bad

Adding water backup coverage was surprisingly expensive. When we generated a sample homeowners policy from Nationwide, we attempted to add water-backup coverage, an important addition to a policy that covers damage from a drain or sump pump backup. Typically, this coverage should add about $15 or $20 to your annual premium, but Nationwide added $100 a year to the cost of our insurance policy.

Claims satisfaction ratings were just about average for the industry. Nationwide scored just above industry average on the 2019 J.D. Power Property Claims Satisfaction Study. Its claims process is simple but the overall satisfaction rating puts it in the category of good, not great.

The Breakdown

The cost of home insurance depends on a number of factors, including where you live and how your house is constructed. But Nationwide is relatively affordable, although the average quoted Nationwide premium with Policygenius was $2,068, slightly over the overall average premium. But with a wide array of discounts offered, Nationwide can still be a good choice for the budget-concious homeowner.

Your homeowners insurance rates depend in large part on the amount of coverage in your policy. Below is the average cost of homeowners insurance at different levels of coverage with Nationwide.

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

Discounts

As we've already mentioned, Nationwide offers a number of discounts to help you save on homeowners insurance. These discounts can be a great way to help bring down your costs.

Typical discounts offered by most major carriers include protective devices discounts and claims-free discounts. Nationwide offers these, as well as a bundling discount for combining your home and auto policy with Nationwide.

• Protective device discount - A discount for having security and safety features like smoke detectors, burgler alarms, fire alarms, and sprinklers

• Loss-free discount - A discount for going a certain amount of time without filing a claim

• New home purchase discount - A discount if you've purchased a home within the last 12 months.

• Multi-policy discount - Savings for bundling your homeowners insurance policy with auto or another type of property insurance offered by Nationwide.

• Roof rating discounts. - Discounts if your roof is newer or built to withstand wind and hail.

• Gated community discount - A discount if you live somewhere where vehicle entrances are all protected.

Since homeowners insurance is such essential protection, you want to make sure that the insurance company you choose has the financial stability to be able to pay out your claim on time and in full in the event of a covered loss. Nationwide is a major carrier that's been in business for nearly a century, and it has the strong financial strength ratings that will put you at ease.

• Year founded: 1926

• Standard & Poor's rating: A+

• Moody's rating: A1

• 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. A AAA rating is the highest issuer credit rating assigned by S&P, so Nationwide's A+ rating puts them near the highest tiers of insurance companies in terms of financial confidence.

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, so Nationwide's A1 rating, while a few rungs from the absolute top, is still very high.

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

One of the best ways to measure a homeowners insurance company is to turn to independent sites that track what actual consumers think of their experience with different companies.

Nationwide has fairly good scores when it comes to customer experience and satisfaction, although its overall satisfaction score from J.D. Power isn't stellar. Still, considering just how many people Nationwide protects, solid scores mean many, many satisfied customers.

• J.D. Power: 2 / 5

• BBB: A+

• Consumer Affairs: 3.9 / 5

• Consumers Advocate: 4.2 / 5

• NAIC complaint index: .42

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. Nationwide's 2018 score of .42 means they received less complaints than the average company.

Nationwide offers a base policy that includes much of what most homeowners will need, like replacement cost coverage for your home and personal belongings, flexible coverage limits for other parts of your policy, and several coverage endorsements.

One of those endorsments, Nationwide Protection Boost, drastically increases sublimits for expensive personal belongings.

Standard Policy

• Replacement cost dwelling coverage (option for extended replacement cost)

• Replacement cost personal property coverage

• Loss-of-use coverage that matches your dwelling limit

• Loss-assessment coverage

• Ordinance or law coverage

• Inflation protection coverage

Protection Boost endorsement

• 30% coverage for personal property at other residences

• $1,000 coverage for lost or stolen money

• $5,000 coverage for lost or stolen securities

• $5,000 in watercraft coverage

• $5,000 in trailers coverage

• $10,000 coverage for lost or stolen jewelry or watches

• $50,000 coverage for theft of jewelry inside a vault

• $10,000 coverage for lost or stolen firearms

• $15,000 coverage for lost or stolen silverware

• $5,000 coverage for lost or stolen cameras

• $10,000 credit card coverage

• $10,000 debris removal

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.

Nationwide is a popular home insurance carrier, available across the U.S., and its online tools make it easy to get a quote for coverage.

State availability

Nationwide homeowners insurance is available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Digital tools

Nationwide has a number of digital tools, including an online application and quote generator, online policy management and bill-paying and online claims-filing. There's also a Nationwide mobile app where you can manage your policy, or start a claim and record damage.

The application

Like most major insurance companies, you can apply for Nationwide homeowners coverage over the phone or online. Their online quote generator is easy to use, you simply go to their website, plug in both personal information and information about your home, select potential discount opportunities, and out comes a quote.

From the quote page, you can adjust your coverage limits and add various endorsements to your policy, where you can see in real time how adding or subtracting coverage can increase or decrease your rates.

After finalizing coverages, you select a local agent to answer your insurance questions and assist you with claims. From there, you move on to the payment portal and choose whether you’d like to pay yourself or through your mortgage company. The entire process takes around 10 minutes.

Ease of claims

When it comes to claim responsiveness and payouts, Nationwide is slightly better than the industry average, according to a 2019 survey by consumer insights leader J.D. Power.

The claims process is fairly easy. You access Nationwide’s claims portal from their homepage, and once you get there, they have a number of instructional resources for what to do in the wake of a loss. Once you’re ready to go, you begin the claims process, where you can either file a claim as a Nationwide policyholder or on behalf of a policyholder.

Additional claims service

In addition to filing claims online or over the phone, Nationwide allows you to start a claim through its Nationwide mobile app, where you can also upload photos of damage to your home or property.

Claim satisfaction

Nationwide earned an above industry-average score of on the most recent J.D. Power Property Claims Satisfaction Study, putting above many of its competitors when it comes to claims happiness. That includes all aspects of the claims process, from how easy is to reach an adjuster to satisfaction with the payout.

However Nationwide wasn't quite in the top-tier for claims satisfaction, and homeowners looking for the most premium customer service and claims handling may not be satisfied.

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.