Infinity Overview
Founded in 1955 as Dixie Insurance Company in Anniston, Alabama, the company eventually known as the Infinity Group expanded quickly in the South. Infinity was purchased by American Premier Underwriters’ sister company Pennsylvania Company in 1991, and a few years later that company merged with American Financial Corporation to form American Financial Group (AFG). In 2002, Infinity became independent again when AFG sold off all stock to the new Infinity Property & Casualty Corporation.
Today Infinity has built a reputation as the go-to company for drivers with tickets or accidents, and is the second largest non-standard insurer in the nation, according to the company website. They not only write non-standard policies – they also write standard auto, home, life, specialty auto, and more.
As of November 2014, infinity was ranked as the 21st largest auto insurance company in the United States. Insure.com ranks them near Amica and National General in terms of overall market share.
The current iteration of Infinity Property & Casualty Corporation has been in business since 2002, and is made up of several companies, including:
- Infinity Group companies
- Atlanta Casualty Companies
- Leader Insurance
- Windsor Auto
- Great American Personal Lines
Additionally, Infinity partners with a list of non-affiliated companies to provide their customers with the products they don’t underwrite.
Infinity policies are written by a network of agents across the nation, with quoting and policy purchases available online and via a toll-free number. The company’s headquarters is located in Birmingham, Alabama, and there are claims service centers scattered across the nation to serve customers locally.
Infinity has built a reputation as a top insurer among Hispanic populations, particularly in California, and has continued to work towards increasing their presence in that market.
Products
Infinity is primarily an auto insurance company, although they write a wide range of other products personal lines category. They’re best known for being an auto insurance company that won’t turn people away because of tickets or accidents, but they also try and appeal to customers looking for standard policies.
Unlike most other companies that specialize in higher- risk policies, Infinity can serve as a one-stop shop for personal lines insurance, covering all of the basics as well as plenty of specialty products.
It should be noted that many of their other product lines are not actually underwritten by Infinity. This is common practice for big auto insurance companies looking to expand their product lineup, but means that customers must be prepared to deal with multiple insurance companies and separate claims departments.
Auto Insurance
Most consumers that have heard of Infinity automatically jump to car insurance. That’s true of many large insurance companies, but some (like Infinity) are more strongly anchored by their auto products than others.
As previously mentioned, Infinity is one of the top non-standard auto insurance companies in the nation. That means that they cater to people who have trouble getting affordable insurance for a variety of reasons: tickets, accidents, DUI or other numerous violations.
Infinity’s website oddly offers next to nothing in terms of details about their coverage and discounts. Coverage choices are instead offered when you begin a quote, which means you’ll have to commit to the quoting process or make a phone call to get details about the various options they offer. That’s something that immediately jumps out when reading the website and something that doesn’t live up to the expectations of a customer base that has grown used to having detailed information readily available online.
The website states that the company offers a variety of packages to meet every driver’s needs, from basic liability-only to full coverage, but there is no list of available optional coverage. It’s also devoid of any of the common trends in auto insurance these days – no sign of accident forgiveness, usage-based insurance, or disappearing deductibles. This may be in part due to the non-standard market, since these options are generally only offered to those with the best driving records.
Infinity’s auto program includes what, on the surface, appears to be a great program – a free roadside assistance plan. A closer look raises some questions regarding the value of the service, however.
DriverClub is Infinity’s free roadside assistance program. Members can sign up and will have access to a network of roadside assistance providers who will help in any non-collision roadside emergency. All of the providers charge for their services, and members of the program pay for them. That means that this free program is really just help finding a provider – it doesn’t pay for any services at all. That’s contrary to most auto insurance roadside assistance programs, which actually pay for services to a certain limit.
Since there’s no actual list of coverage options, it’s difficult to tell whether Infinity offers roadside assistance coverage as an option – but it seems likely that they do, which makes this service less of a free roadside assistance plan and more of a convenient access to the roadside assistance coverage you will have if you decide to add it to your policy.
That said, it could come in handy in a situation where a driver becomes stranded, especially away from home, and doesn’t know who to call for assistance. But the distinction between “free roadside assistance” and this club, which is free assistance with obtaining roadside assistance, is not a small one.
Home Insurance
Infinity writes a range of home insurance products, including:
- Standard Homeowner’s Insurance package policies covering the home itself, personal property, and liability
- Condo Insurance to cover the specific needs of condo owners, including coverage for fixtures and other portions of the condo that fall under the owner’s domain
- Renter’s Insurance, which covers the personal property of tenants who don’t need any structure coverage
- Mobile Home Insurance, designed for the specific needs of mobile homes as they differ from other home types
While the site states that the homeowner’s and renter’s policies are not underwritten by Infinity, but through non-affiliated companies, information as to which insurance companies actually do write the policies is not provided. That’s pretty unusual for a company offering policies through someone else. It is not directly mentioned that condo or mobile home insurance are underwritten elsewhere, but it does seem odd that the company would write that type of home insurance and not the others.
Life Insurance
Like the home and renter’s products, Infinity does not actually write life insurance, but instead helps customers obtain coverage through non-affiliated companies vetted by Infinity.
According to the website, Infinity only offers term life insurance, with terms ranging from 10 to 30 years. There is no mention of any sort of permanent life insurance options.
Specialty Vehicles
Infinity offers policies, most of which are written through non-affiliated companies, for a wide range of specialty vehicles. Among them are:
- Motorcycles
- ATVs
- RVs
- Classic Car
Classic car insurance is the one policy type that is actually underwritten by an Infinity Company, Classic Collectors, a subsidiary that has its own website offering policy and coverage information.
Infinity does appear to offer their DriverClub roadside assistance on their specialty vehicle policies as well.
Commercial Auto
Infinity’s logo shows business insurance as an option, but the only commercial policy listed on the website is commercial auto. Like their personal auto, Infinity tends to cater to a more difficult market, offering coverage for:
- Drivers with foreign licenses
- Automatic coverage for new hires
- Drivers with problems in their driving history, such as tickets or accidents
The commercial auto program serves small to medium sized businesses with a variety of different vehicle types, from passenger to flatbed trucks. They cover businesses including farming operations, delivery companies, sales and more.
Other Products
Infinity also writes personal umbrella insurance and offers flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program, rounding out their personal lines product offerings.
Prices and Premiums
Attempts to get a quote based on our usual test sample were quickly stopped by the quoting system, which didn’t actually list one of the vehicles we usually use for our test rates. Previous sample attempts have also been met with difficulties due to Infinity’s highest available limits being less than our standard test sample selections.
Numbers we have obtained in the past do indicate that Infinity offers rates that are below average – but again, those numbers were obtained at a lower than usual coverage level, which means it’s not an apples to apples comparison.
Given that Infinity is a non-standard insurer, low rates for drivers with clean records as in our test sample wouldn’t be a surprise. They also aren’t what the higher-risk drivers to whom the company caters should expect. Infinity does write standard auto insurance, in spite of the company’s reputation, but those drivers are likely to find better rates, better coverage, and more perks elsewhere.
High-risk drivers can expect to pay higher rates, especially from standard insurance companies. Those who have sought out a non-standard insurer are likely to find the rates a bit more competitive when compared to big standard insurers.
As far as how competitive Infinity is compared to other non-standard auto insurance companies, the fact that they are one of the best known companies in that market certainly seems to speak for itself. This is the market where they are most likely to offer competitive rates.
The website offers very little in terms of information on discounts that can help bring rates down. Since Infinity writes homeowner’s insurance through non-affiliated companies, it’s unlikely that they offer any bundling discount, although multi-vehicle might be available, and they likely offer some of the other most common discounts.
Claims
Infinity has only one option for reporting a claim: their toll-free phone number at 1-800-334-1661.
There is no online claims reporting system at all, which puts Infinity behind the times in comparison to other major insurance companies. Online and even mobile claims reporting are quickly become expected options in an increasingly technology-dependent world.
Infinity does, however, allow the insured to follow up on the current status of a claim and view information on past claims by logging into the customer portal. An online claim filing option would really make this system more useful and bring Infinity up to date with what is quickly becoming an industry standard.
Policyholders are instructed to call the toll-free number in order to report a claim, where they will be connected with what Infinity calls their “One-on-One” personnel. The assigned person will then walk the insured through the process, taking down all of the pertinent information and providing instructions.
The claim is then assigned to an adjuster who will investigate the accident, review policy coverage, determine fault, and complete the settlement. The company doesn’t seem to offer any sort of timeline, even in terms of how fast a call from the adjuster can be expected.
Like most major insurers, Infinity has a preferred repair shop network. Their Repair Satisfaction Vehicle Program connects the insured with one of their preferred providers, who will then work directly with the insured to complete the repairs and handle the claims process. Policyholders are also welcome to select their own repair shop.
Infinity offers a very basic FAQ section that answers a few simple claims questions; although far from comprehensive, it’s more info than a lot of insurance companies offer.
Consumer Feedback
Infinity takes a big hit in terms of reputation right off the bat when we pull up the BBB record for the company. The rating from the BBB is a dismal D, which is really low for a major insurer. It might, in fact, it’s one of the worst ratings I’ve seen for a large insurance company – or one of any size.
Infinity has 396 complaints registered with the BBB, 156 of which were closed in the last 12 months. That’s really high compared to National General, which has almost exactly the same market share as Infinity, but only 186 complaints in the same time period. That means Infinity had only 30 fewer complaints in the past 12 months than did National General in the past three years.
As another comparison point, Travelers Insurance, which has just over double the market share that Infinity has for auto insurance, has a total of 386 complaints. That means that in spite of having more than 1 million more policies in force than Infinity, they still have fewer complaints in the same time period.
The BBB record states that the company’s rating was lowered as a result of 9 complaints to which there was no company response. That means they did respond to the majority of them – but the BBB takes failure to respond very seriously.
Beyond the BBB, complaints about Infinity are not difficult to find. Repeated reports of denied claims, extremely long claims processing times, poor customer service, and big rate increases are the repeated refrain in all of these complaints. Like all insurance companies that sell through agents, some of the complaints can be chalked up to individual agents who are problematic – but a read-through of the complaints against Infinity definitely prove that’s not the whole story, or even the majority of the story.
Pissed Consumer registers 111 complaints about Infinity, many of them on the same topic – claims were denied even in clear-cut cases, customer service people did not return calls or were rude, and rates were increased or policies cancelled without explanation. We also came across reports of having to make insurance department complaints in order to get any resolution from the company.
This YouTube video review of infinity, from someone who was involved in an accident with an Infinity policyholder, seems to really sum up the complaints that appear over and over on the various complaint websites. This particular review comes up in the first page of search results, which suggests it has drawn a lot of interest.
Research was able to come up with only a few positive reviews of the company, and none of these indicated that a claim had been processed on the policy. Positive reviews of insurance companies are unusual in general, but in this case they seem even harder to come by, and are greatly outnumbered by the negative ones.
Complaints about insurance companies are not uncommon, and every insurance company has them, but in this case the number of complaints and the repeated reports of the same behavior from the insurance company are worthy of a lot of concern. It’s clear that there is a big hole in Infinity’s claims handling process and a problem when it comes to communication with both policyholders and those insured by other companies who have been involved in an accident with an Infinity policyholder.
Advertising and Media
Infinity is well known as a major insurer in the Hispanic market, so it’s no surprise that their advertisements appear in both English and Spanish. In 2008 they started a campaign of sponsorships and affiliations that really focused on Hispanic customers. This report states that the company insures a huge Hispanic population in California. They also sponsor the Read Conmigo program, which promotes bilingual literacy.
Most of their advertising is pretty straightforward. There’s a little humor, and the ads are generally lighthearted, but it’s certainly not on the level of companies like GEICO or Progressive, whose advertisements are all about the laughs. Infinity frequently features their actual customers in their advertisements, and generally sticks to the themes of making sure you have the right coverage and how much money you could save.
On the whole, Infinity’s advertisements are pretty forgettable, with no mascot or spokesperson to stick in the memory, nor a jingle or other memorable catch. Considering the fact that they appeal to a very specific market, aggressive advertising might not be much of a requirement for Infinity; niche markets tend to operate on a lot of word-of-mouth between customers.
Overall, Infinity’s media presence is understated, but that doesn’t seem to have hurt them in terms of customer numbers.
Bottom Line
Infinity targets a niche market – higher-risk drivers, as well as the Hispanic market, particularly in California. For those who have been turned down by or faced exceedingly high rates from standard insurance companies, they are likely to be one of the top choices to consider. Unfortunately, the non-standard auto insurance market doesn’t offer nearly as many choices as the standard market, so those in need of this type of coverage have a limited selection. As a result, Infinity is likely to be near the top of the list of options.
As far as the company’s other product offerings, most are not underwritten by Infinity directly, which means there’s no benefit as far as bundling discounts, and you’re facing a whole new unknown when it comes to claims handling and customer service. So while Infinity does appear to offer the one-stop shopping option, you aren’t really dealing with just one company.
Overall, Infinity is a decent contender in the non-standard and high-risk insurance markets, but those with good driving records will probably find a better option elsewhere.
For a list of companies that we recommend, visit our Best Insurance Companies page.
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Source: http://docphy.com/business-industry/personal-finance/insurance/infinity-auto-insurance-review.html
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