Highest Value Auto Customers Most Likely to Shop

• By: AnneMarie McPherson Spears
• June 19, 2025

More than one-third (38%) of U.S. personal auto insurance customers are dissatisfied with their insurance, according to J.D. Power’s “2025 U.S. Auto Insurance Study.”

While overall customer satisfaction with auto insurers declined to 644 on a 1,000-point scale, just 2 points down from last year, one-third of customers fall into the bottom segment of customer satisfaction scores, which makes them much more likely to shop their coverage.

37% of auto insurance customers say they are interested in embedded insurance.

Crucially, the highest value customers are the most at risk of switching. Of customers with higher overall lifetime value profiles—meaning they have higher annual premiums, have multiple policies with their current insurer and have been with their insurer for a long time—only 51% say they “definitely will” renew with their insurer. Comparatively, 53% of medium-value lifetime customers and 54% of low-value lifetime customers say they will definitely renew.

The high shopping rates come even as premium increases slow, according to J.D. Power’s “2025 U.S. Insurance Shopping Study.” The rate of U.S. auto insurance premium increases reduced to less than 2% at the end of 2024, down from 13% at the beginning of 2024. At the same time, shopping rates jumped to 57% by the end of 2024, up from 49% at the beginning of 2024.

While good rates and low cost are the top reasons customers cite for initially choosing a carrier, good service and positive claims experience are the top reasons customers stay with their carrier. The No. 1 factor leading to overall satisfaction is a seamless experience across communication channels, J.D. Power found. Customers are significantly more likely to have higher levels of trust, feel better about the people they work with and feel like it is easy to work with their insurer.

Further, more than one-third (37%) of auto insurance customers say they are interested in embedded insurance—millennials and Generation Z are especially interested, at 47%, as well as those who say the primary reason for shopping their auto policy is service, at 48%.

As the property & casualty insurance market finally enjoys profitability for the first time in four years and personal auto premium increases level off, insurers will now turn their attention to improving customer relationships, the study says.

“Now that insurers are shifting back into growth mode, they really need to focus on cultivating and keeping high-value customers,” said Stephen Crewdson, managing director of insurance business intelligence at J.D. Power. “But among many of those customers, overall satisfaction this year is not particularly high. To shift that perception after the past few years of significant rate increases, insurers need to focus on delivering a tailored, seamless customer experience across all channels.”

AnneMarie McPherson Spears is IA news editor.