Pros
- Competitive rates
- Easy-to-use onlinetools & mobile app
- Lots of coverage options
- Numerous discounts available
Cons
- Average reviews
- Relatively few local agents (none in some areas)
Geico Review Summary
Geico is one of the best insurance companies overall, earning a rating of 4.4/5 from WalletHub, solid customer reviews, and A+ scores from organizations such as the Better Business Bureau. Geico, which stands for Government Employees Insurance Company, is best known for providing affordable car insurance coverage. But you don’t have to work for the government to get Geico insurance, and you can cover much more than your car. Geico also offers homeowners insurance, renters insurance, boat insurance, jewelry insurance, and several other types of policies.
In the sections below, you can learn more about Geico’s insurance offerings, how they compare to policies from top competitors, and where they’re lacking. For instance, you can find out why Geico, despite all of its great features, does have some room for improvement in the customer service and claims departments.
Summary: Geico Scores by Review Category
Category | Score |
---|---|
Geico Quotes / Pricing | 30/30 |
Customer Service & Reviews | 17.5/30 |
Geico Financial Stability | 10/10 |
Geico Claims Process | 15/15 |
Geico Types of Insurance and Additional Services Offered | 5/5 |
Geico Discounts | 5/5 |
Geico Transparency | 5/5 |
OVERALL | 87.5/100 |
Now that you’re familiar with Geico’s scores in each of our review categories, let’s see how the company compares to top competitors in a handful of key areas. Hopefully, this will help you find the best insurance company for your needs.
Geico Car Insurance Pricing
Category Rating: 100% (30 out of 30)
Driver Profile | Average Quote |
---|---|
18-Year-Old | $119 per month |
21-Year-Old | $53 per month |
45-Year-Old | $39 per month |
45-Year-Old with a Speeding Ticket | $59 per month |
45-Year-Old with DUI | $94 per month |
55-Year-Old | $38 per month |
65-Year-Old | $38 per month |
Geico received a score of 30/30 in the cost portion of this review, as its premiums rank in the cheapest quartile among the major car insurance companies that WalletHub evaluated.
However, it is worth noting that Geico’s method of calculating rate quotes faced legal action from the Consumer Federation of California in 2015. The complaint alleged that Geico’s rate-quote system unfairly targeted certain low-income motorists with deceptive and inflated insurance quotes. Geico paid $6 million to settle the deceptive rate-quote complaint. Learn more about WalletHub’s Methodology.
Geico Customer Service & Reviews
Category Rating: 60% (17.5 out of 30)
- Reviews on WalletHub: 2.5/5
- JD Power: 4.2/5
- NAIC: 1.23
- BBB: A+
Customer service can be difficult to evaluate, but it is an important factor to consider when choosing an insurance company. How helpful an insurer’s customer service department is can affect how you manage your policy, how confident you are in your coverage, and how likely you are to switch carriers. That’s why customer reviews and ratings from watchdog groups can be so revealing.
All things considered, Geico receives a solid score in this category, with a few points deducted because of customer complaints. Complaints about Geico car insurance generally revolve around three issues: slow claim response times, confusing website pages, and premium increases.
However, Geico has a good NAIC rating, which indicates customer reviews are positive overall. An A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau also supports Geico’s good reputation overall.
Geico’s Financial Stability
Category Rating: 100% (10 out of 10)
- Standard & Poor’s: AA+
- Moody’s: Aa1
- AM Best: A++
Geico and its affiliates have also earned top marks from Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s, and AM Best for their financial strength and claims-paying ability. Knowing that an insurance company has the financial wherewithal to pay out claims should remove at least a measure of doubt from consumers’ minds.
Geico Claims
Category Rating: 100% (15 out of 15)
Geico allows customers to file claims online or by phone. It also offers 24/7 claims support by phone, which could be helpful if you get into an accident in the middle of the night, for example. As a result, Geico receives full marks in this category, per our grading criteria, which you can find in the Methodology section below.
This is not to say that Geico’s claims process is perfect. There are issues from time to time, prompting customer complaints, as is the case with any insurance company. But Geico provides all the tools needed to make the claims process as painless as possible.
Learn more about Geico's claims process.
Geico’s Types of Insurance
Category Rating: 100% (5 out of 5)
- Auto insurance
- ATV insurance
- Bicycle insurance
- Boat/PWC insurance
- Business Owners insurance
- Collector Auto insurance
- Commercial Auto insurance
- Condo/Co-op insurance
- Cyber Liability insurance
- Earthquake insurance
- Event insurance
- Flood insurance
- General Liability insurance
- Homeowners insurance
- Identity Protection insurance
- Jewelry insurance
- Landlord insurance
- Life insurance
- Medical Malpractice insurance
- Mexico Auto insurance
- Mobile Home insurance
- Motorcycle insurance
- Overseas insurance
- Pet insurance
- Professional Liability insurance
- Renters insurance
- RV insurance
- Travel insurance
- Umbrella insurance
- Wellness & Fitness insurance
- Workers' Compensation
- Geico DriveEasy
Given that Geico offers several different insurance options – including car, home and life insurance – and gives customers savings for bundling policies, it received a high score in this category. Below, we’ll delve deeper into the car insurance coverage options available from Geico, as auto insurance is what the company is mainly known for.
Geico offers all of the standard car insurance coverage options: liability insurance for bodily injury and property damage, collision insurance, and comprehensive coverage, for example. On top of that, Geico offers a supplemental list of protections as well as specialty auto insurance options that help set it apart from competitors.
Supplemental Geico Car Insurance Coverage Options:
- Emergency Road Service: Covers emergency towing, jump starts, flat tires, and lockout services.
- Rental Reimbursement: Covers the cost of rentals while your primary vehicle is in the repair shop.
- Mechanical Breakdown: Covers mechanical issues that arise after your car warranty expires.
- Auto Repair Xpress®: Expedites the auto repair process after you have reported a claim.
- Accident Forgiveness: Protects you from premium increases due to your first at-fault accident.
Consumers should choose the coverage options that best fit their needs and wallets. The primary goal of every savvy auto insurance shopper is to get the best coverage for the lowest price.
Specialty Types of Geico Auto Insurance:
- Geico Non-owner Car Insurance for drivers who don’t own a car but need car rental insurance.
- Geico Commercial Auto Insurance for vehicles used for business purposes.
- Geico Classic Car Insurance for antique or collector cars.
- Geico Mexico Auto Insurance for individuals driving their cars in Mexico.
For those who live life on the adventurous side, Geico also insures motorcycles, ATVs, boats, and other types of recreational vehicles.
Geico Discounts
Category Rating: 100% (5 out of 5)
- Multi-policy discount
- Multi-vehicle discount
- New vehicle discount
- Military discount
- Federal employee discount
- Defensive driving course discount
- Driver’s education course discount
- Five-year accident-free discount
- Good student discount
- Seat-belt-use discount
- Anti-theft system discount
- Anti-lock brakes discount
- Airbag discount
- Daytime running lights discount
- Partnered-organization discount
- Emergency deployment discount
Altogether, Geico offers more than 16 different insurance discounts, providing savings of up to 40%. As a result, Geico receives full marks in this category.
You can learn more from our Geico discounts guide. Just bear in mind that discount availability and details vary by state.
Geico Transparency
Category Rating: 100% (5 out of 5)
Key information is easy to find on Geico’s website and mobile app, so it gets a good score in the transparency department from WalletHub. Furthermore, Geico has live customer service agents available to answer any questions you might have.
Bottom Line
Geico is an excellent insurance company, especially for tech-savvy, budget-conscious drivers who are comfortable buying car insurance directly from an insurance company, rather than from an individual agent. Prospective customers should also be comfortable managing the policy largely online and over the phone, rather than face to face with an agent. Fortunately, Geico has a largely transparent, fairly easy-to-use website.
All in all, Geico car insurance scores well in terms of pricing, ease of use, and coverage options. For example, Geico offers a special policy to protect people driving for rideshare companies or on-demand delivery services. There are lots of discounts available, too, lending some credibility to the company’s famous tagline: “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.” In fact, the various discount categories could help drivers save as much as 40%.
Geico Car Insurance vs Competitors
Insurer | Geico | Allstate | State Farm | Progressive |
---|---|---|---|---|
Average Premium* | $1,009 per year | $1,569 per year | $1,410 per year | $1,296 per year |
Number of Car Insurance Discounts | 17 | 12 | 16 | 13 |
Offers Home Insurance | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Complaints Score (lower is best) | 1.23 | 2.70 | 1.18 | 1.45 |
Editor’s Rating | 4.4 | 2.9 | 4.1 | 3.9 |
*Complaints Score represents the company's overall NAIC rating. Car insurance-specific rating may differ.
*Average annual premiums are based on a variety of driver profiles. Individuals premiums may differ, but these rates illustrate how costs from these insurers typically compare. Learn more about how these rates were calculated in the methodology section below.
For more car insurance research, check out WalletHub’s Cheap Car Insurance Study. And if you have experience with Geico that you think might help other consumers, you can also write a Geico insurance review.
Geico Insurance Review Video
Methodology
In order to provide fair, helpful reviews of insurance companies such as Geico that can lead consumers to the best insurance coverage for their needs, WalletHub rates each insurance company in seven major categories: Cost, Insurance Types, Customer Service & Reviews, Discounts, Claims, Financial Stability and Transparency. Below, you can find an overview of what each section in our scoring rubric entails.
- The “Cost” section includes information about how expensive the insurance policies are. Geico's average premiums and quartile rankings are based on data from California, the largest state Geico operates in. Rate information is provided by Quadrant Information Services. Individual rates will be different.
- The “Insurance Types” section examines what types of insurance policies the company offers.
- The “Customer Service & Reviews” section measures the insurance company’s reputation as well user reviews and information from watchdog organizations.
- The “Discounts” section examines how many and what types of discounts the company offers. It also takes into consideration whether or not there are discounts for bundling policies.
- The “Claims” section examines the ways in which customers can make claims with the policy. It considers whether or not customers can make claims by phone or online, as well as whether or not the company has a 24/7 support line.
- The “Financial Stability” section considers the company’s status with credit rating agencies AM Best, S&P and Moody’s.
- The “Transparency” section measures how clearly the insurer discloses key information on its website.
The final score takes these seven categories into account and reflects how close an insurance company is to WalletHub’s definition of a 5-star insurer. For more information, please read WalletHub’s full insurance company methodology.
Ask the Experts
To gain more insight about Geico Car Insurance, WalletHub posed the following questions to a panel of experts. Click on the experts below to view their bios and answers.
1. How important should Geico Insurance reviews be to potential customers?
2. Why do insurance companies like Geico spend so much money on commercials?
3. Do national companies like Geico tend to be a better deal for consumers vs a local insurance company?
4. How much of Geico’s success as a company would you ascribe to Warren Buffet?
5. How important should Geico's list of discounts be for a car insurance shopper compared to its base premiums?
Ask the Experts
Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Marketing, Academic Director, Bernie Moreno Center for Sales Excellence, Monte Ahuja College of Business, Cleveland State University
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Ph.D., Senior Fellow, Georgia Tech CIBER, Regents’ Professor Emeritus, Editor-in-Chief, Review of Marketing Research, Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Scheller College of Business
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Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in Marketing, Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University
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Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Marketing, College of Business and Economics, California State University, Los Angeles
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Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Marketing, School of Economics and Business, State University of New York at Oneonta
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Assistant Professor of Instruction, Department of Advertising and Public Relations, Klein College of Media and Communication, Temple University
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