Secured with SHA-256 EncryptionAmerican Access Casualty Company Auto Insurance Review
American Access Casualty Company (AACC) was founded in December 1999 servicing the Chicago metropolitan market, and it later expanded service to Illinois, Nevada, Arizona, Indiana, and Texas.
AACC offers nonstandard auto products to consumers and works under the philosophy of “writing good business over writing volume.”
Its strengths include partnering with select agencies that specialize in high-quality risk-managed business and working one-on-one with customers to make sure they get the service they need.
In this review:
AACC Auto Insurance Products
AACC offers several auto insurance products for private and commercial drivers.
Bodily Injury Liability:
This coverage pays up to your policy limit if you cause injury or death to another person while driving. If you are sued, this covers the cost of legal defense.
Property Damage Liability:
This option covers damages that may occur to another person’s vehicle or property while you are driving, and it pays for the legal defense if you are sued.
Medical Payments:
This add-on provides coverage for injuries experienced by the driver and passengers in your car. It also covers you if you’re hit by a vehicle while walking.
Uninsured Motorist:
If an uninsured driver hits you, this coverage takes care of payment for your injuries.
Claims Satisfaction
Ideally, you buy car insurance and never have to talk to your insurer again, but if you need to file a claim, how they handle your claims process is particularly crucial.
Let’s look at American Access Casualty Company Auto insurance reviews on claim satisfaction.
J.D. Power is among various organizations that conduct studies of various insurance companies, using specific criteria to evaluate and rank insurance providers. It’s recent claims satisfaction study rates major insurance providers in seven areas related to the claims process, including communication, quality of service interaction, and timeliness of response, which they refer to as key performance indicators (KPIs).
AACC Company Ratings
American Access Casualty Company Auto insurance ratings are not covered in the J.D. Power study, but the Better Business Bureau gives the company an A+ rating based on its transparent business operations, number of complaints, time in business, advertising, and other factors. This is despite 60 customer reviews that give the company an average of 1 out of 5 stars.
Among AACC’s competitors that were ranked, USAA has 4 or 5 power circles in all seven J.D. Power ranking factors, while Geico scored a 4-circle rating in six categories.
Customer Service
Hopefully, you won’t have to deal with the claims process, but there are other considerations to choosing your next insurance company.
For example, the purchasing process and method of delivering documents directly impact the satisfaction of many consumers.
Drivers should also look at the company’s customer service, pricing, and timely response.
Customer Complaints
Another quantifiable factor to consider is the number of justifiable complaints reported against an insurance company.
Looking at American Access Casualty Company Auto insurance reviews, we found that despite it’s a+ rating, the company has had 194 complaints filed against it with the BBB, only 26 of which are listed as resolved.
This is worrisome, as it’s a very low number of answered complaints, proportionately.
On a national scale, AACA had 110 National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC #10730) complaints in 2017 with a complaint ratio of 3.02 for private passenger vehicles.
This is also a significant figure considering the small coverage area of this provider, and is quite a bit over the national median of 1.00.
Pricing
When it comes to auto insurance pricing, several individual elements can greatly impact what you pay for your policy. Insurers factor in age, location, driving history, type of vehicle, and credit rating before zeroing in on what you pay.
Prices can vary between insurance companies, so it’s important to understand their criteria before selecting your provider.
Consider this example of fluctuating insurance premiums for competitors of American Access:
A single male in San Francisco, CA, licensed for 9 years, who has one ticket and one accident, and drives a Toyota Camry about 12,000 to 15,000 miles per year can annually expect to pay:
- $1,800 for liability-only coverage through Progressive
- $2,948 through Allstate
- $2,694 through Farmers
Unfortunately, American Access doesn’t have an online rate calculator available. You can get a quote by contacting a local agent, and the online website does provide a quick form to find an agent, however.
American Access Casualty Company Auto insurance reviews show that this is an atypical insurer that is unlikely to compete well rate-wise with more standard insurers.
Financial Strength
Though often overlooked by auto insurance consumers, the financial strength of an insurer can be a make-or-break factor.
Insurance policies aren’t federally insured like bank accounts, which means that consumers are not guaranteed to receive their qualified payout if their provider becomes insolvent.
Fortunately, several organizations independently review and rate insurance companies on their financial strength so that consumers can understand the risks involved with selecting a business.
Companies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s evaluate insurers using a number of factors, and then assign a grade to represent that company’s financial strength. They run scenarios that may include natural disasters which could cause an insurance company to have thousands of simultaneous claims, and they measure its ability to handle that volume.
Neither Moody’s nor Standard & Poor’s rates American Access Casualty Auto.
The company’s website does include the most recent financial statements so you can have a third-party financial advisor review these documents for creditworthiness if you so choose.
Final Thoughts on American Access Casualty Company
Auto insurance ratings show this small company to be somewhat of an enigma in pricing and claims satisfaction. Most people who choose this company and others like it are usually having a hard time finding coverage elsewhere.
Keep in mind that there are many other nonstandard companies also on the market that serve a limited coverage area, and it is best to get comparative quotes before taking out a policy.