How to Check Home Insurance Company Ratings
Look up the company's AM Best or S&P financial strength score, which shows how reliably it pays claims.
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Why ratings matter right now
Getting dropped or turned down doesn't change why ratings matter when you shop for a new policy. The insurers still willing to write a home like yours, especially after a non-renewal for claims, roof age, or an insurer pulling back from your area, may include smaller or less familiar names. That's when an AM Best score matters most, because it tells you whether the company can actually pay out if you need it to. A rating of B+ or higher is generally considered financially sound. If a new insurer is offering coverage quickly after your cancellation, check its rating before you sign anything. Your state's insurance department website also lists complaint histories, which show how a company treats policyholders when claims get difficult.
Compare before the deadline hits
You still need a policy your lender will accept, and not every insurer willing to write your house right now has a strong rating. Checking a few side by side shows which ones actually pay claims reliably.
What a rating does and doesn't tell you
An AM Best or S&P score measures one thing. It tells you whether the company has the money to pay claims it owes. It says nothing about how fast they pay, how they treat you during a dispute, or how much your premium will go up next year. A company can be financially strong and still be slow or difficult when you file a claim. That's why the rating is a starting point, not the whole picture.
For the complaint history and service side, your state's insurance department publishes a complaint index for each licensed insurer. It compares how many complaints a company gets against its size, so a small insurer with five complaints isn't automatically worse than a large one with fifty. Look for a number close to or below 1.0, which means the company gets about as many complaints as expected for its size, or fewer. A number well above that is worth asking about before you sign.
If you're working with an agent to replace a canceled policy, ask directly what rating the company holds and whether it's changed recently. Ratings do move. A company that was A- two years ago can be downgraded if too many claims came in at once, often after a bad storm season in its region. Downgrades matter more in catastrophe-prone states, where an insurer's ability to pay out after a major event is exactly what the rating is meant to predict.
None of this replaces reading the policy itself. A financially sound company selling you a policy with a high wind deductible or a roof exclusion still leaves you exposed in ways a rating won't show. Check the rating, check the complaint record, then read what the policy actually covers before the deadline on your cancellation letter runs out.
Where to actually look these ratings up
AM Best's website lets you search any company by name for free, no account needed. The score shows up as a letter grade, from A++ down through C and below, sometimes with a plus or minus attached. S&P and Moody's rate insurers too, though AM Best is the one built specifically around insurance companies and the one most agents reference.
Your state's insurance department site is where the complaint index lives. Search for the department by your state's name plus "insurance department," then look for a consumer services or complaint ratio tool. Some states publish this as a searchable database, others as an annual PDF report. Either way, the number you want compares a company's complaints to its market share, not just a raw count.
A company's own site sometimes lists its AM Best rating on a page about financial strength. Verify it directly on AM Best rather than taking the insurer's word for it. Ratings get updated throughout the year, and a company might be slow to update what it shows on its own marketing pages after a downgrade.
If the insurer offering you a new policy is small or one you haven't heard of, it may not carry a rating at all. Some smaller regional carriers, especially ones that write in states where larger insurers have pulled back, go unrated because they haven't gone through the AM Best review process. That isn't automatically a red flag, but it means relying more heavily on the complaint index and on asking the agent directly how long the company has been licensed in your state.
Before you sign anything
Pull up AM Best's site and search the new insurer's name. If it's rated B+ or higher, check your state's complaint index too. Both take a few minutes, before your cancellation deadline doesn't.
