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Renters Insurance Allstate

Allstate Renters Insurance Review

Allstate’s renters insurance is a reasonably safe choice, although there’s nothing exemplary about it. Allstate is solidly average when it comes to both coverage and price.

Robert Jellison June 9, 2021 Get a Renters Insurance Quote
Allstate Renters Insurance Review

Table of Contents

  1. Evaluating Allstate’s renters insurance – the 7 factors to consider
  2. How expensive is Allstate renters insurance?
  3. What does Allstate renters insurance cover?
  4. Can you bundle Allstate renters insurance with other policies?
  5. How easy is it to buy a policy and file a claim?
  6. What are Allstate’s consumer satisfaction ratings?
  7. Is Allstate financially stable?
  8. Does Allstate operate in your state?
  9. Recap: Should you choose Allstate renters insurance?
  10. Allstate renters insurance: Our final rating

Evaluating Allstate’s renters insurance – the 7 factors to consider

Most renters insurance companies provide broadly similar services, which makes it hard to evaluate them, especially because there’s no way to take a trial run of their most important service (their claims handling process).

When weighing a provider like Allstate against their competitors, you need to look at the following seven questions:

  1. How expensive is Allstate renters insurance?
  2. What does Allstate renters insurance cover?
  3. Can you bundle Allstate renters insurance with any other policies?
  4. How easy is it to buy a policy and file a claim?
  5. What are Allstate’s consumer satisfaction ratings?
  6. Is Allstate financially stable?
  7. Does Allstate provide renters insurance in your state?

Overall, we found that Allstate was a middle-of-the-road renters insurance provider with average prices and decent (but not amazing) customer satisfaction ratings.

How expensive is Allstate renters insurance?

We conducted a survey of every major renters insurance provider and found that the average price of renters insurance was about $20 per month. (Actually, the average is more like $20.50, but $20 is such a nice number to round to.)

Allstate’s renters insurance policies cost about $20.77 on average, which places them almost exactly in the middle of the pack. They don’t offer any significant advantages or disadvantages when it comes to pricing.

Takeaway: Overall, we found Allstate’s pricing to be completely average.

What does Allstate renters insurance cover?

Most renters insurance policies provide roughly the same four types of coverage, although they sometimes differ in the details.

Like virtually all of their competitors, Allstate provides:

  • Personal property coverage: This type of coverage protects your physical things. If your property is damaged by an event known as a covered peril, such as fire, Allstate will reimburse you for your financial loss.
  • Personal liability coverage: Under this type of coverage, Allstate will reimburse you for your legal expenses if somebody sues you for property damage or bodily harm.
  • Guest medical coverage: If a guest in your home gets injured or sick, Allstate will pay for some of their medical bills even if they don’t try to hold you legally liable.
  • Loss-of-use coverage: If a covered peril forces you to temporarily leave your home, Allstate will cover your additional expenses, including your hotel bills, until you can move back in.

As with their pricing, Allstate’s coverage is pretty normal for renters insurance. We did find a few options worth noting:

Allstate lets you choose between replacement cost and actual cash value

When you buy Allstate renters insurance, you can choose between a replacement cost and actual cash value policy. This is interesting, as some of the other insurers we’ve looked at only offer one option (usually replacement cost, which protects your possessions much more completely).

However, it’s worth noting that you have to actively ask to do this — Allstate won’t volunteer it as an option. There’s no button that lets you switch to actual cash value insurance anywhere on Allstate’s website, and when we bought a policy over the phone, Allstate’s rep never asked us which option we preferred.

Allstate isn’t particularly dog-friendly

Many insurers refuse to provide renters insurance to pit bull owners, but Allstate also denies coverage to several other breeds. (Including one breed that we’d never heard of in our lives, the Presa Canario — and judging by our agent’s voice, she’d never heard of it, either.)

Allstate will not insure the following dog breeds:

  • Japanese Akita
  • Boxer
  • Chow Chow
  • Dobermann Pinscher
  • Pit bull
  • Perro de Presa Canario
  • Rottweilers
  • Wolf-hybrids

German Shepherds and Huskies are notably absent from this list, although these restrictions sometimes vary by state. If you have a large dog, contact Allstate before buying a policy and double-check that you’re still eligible for their renters insurance.

Allstate offers other useful insurance … but maybe not in your state

Depending on what state you live in, Allstate might offer other types of insurance when you buy renters insurance, such as earthquake insurance, flood insurance, and umbrella insurance.

These aren’t endorsements for renters insurance — they’re entirely separate policies that Allstate sometimes sells along with their renters insurance.

We weren’t able to find a place to view or buy these insurance plans on Allstate’s website. We read about their umbrella insurance plans on a third-party site, and were unexpectedly offered an earthquake policy when we called to buy renters insurance.

The lack of information on Allstate’s site was a theme in our interactions with them, and it’s a definite black mark against them. Insurance differs greatly by state, and it’s frustrating that there’s no easy way to tell what Allstate offers in your area without calling an agent.

Takeaway: We found Allstate’s coverage options to be about average, although it’s possible we’d have been more positive about this if their website was more informative.

Can you bundle Allstate renters insurance with other policies?

Most companies allow you to bundle renters insurance with at least one other type of insurance for a discount. (“Bundling” just means purchasing two policies together.)

Allstate offers a bundling discount of around 13%–14% when you bundle your renters and auto insurance together. We recommend buying your policy over the phone, because when you buy Allstate’s renters and auto insurance together on their website, Allstate likes to redirect you to their subsidiary (Esurance), at which point you have to start the entire purchasing process over again. This happened to us several times, and it wasn’t fun.

Allstate also offers bundling discounts on motorcycle insurance. Depending on where you live, they might also offer discounts on other types of policies, including life insurance and earthquake insurance, but their website is characteristically tight-lipped about this. We recommend calling a local agent for details.

Takeaway: We found that Allstate’s renters insurance bundling options were slightly above average.

How easy is it to buy a policy and file a claim?

Allstate lets you buy insurance and file claims in several different ways:

  • On their website
  • Via their mobile app
  • Over the phone

Allstate’s website

Allstate’s website is attractive and has a well-designed interface. Getting a renters insurance quote requires filling out a short questionnaire about your dwelling and your insurance needs. The process is relatively painless.

However, as we noted above, Allstate’s website fails to tell you about certain options they offer. Their website also claims that they offer several insurance options which, upon further investigation, we found out they actually don’t.

For example, in Allstate’s online renters insurance application, they offer to add an identity protection rider to your policy. However, when we called them, we discovered that this rider wasn’t actually available in our state (California).

That sort of thing is sloppy, and risks wasting the customer’s time, which isn’t great when sometimes people need to get renters insurance very quickly (e.g. when their landlord requires renters insurance as a condition of their lease).

Allstate’s app

We weren’t impressed with Allstate’s mobile app. Most of the things you’d want to use it for — buying other insurance policies, viewing information about your claims, and so on — can’t actually be done inside the app.

Instead, when you click the appropriate button, it just opens a browser window and redirects you to the corresponding page on Allstate’s website. This is really just a more complicated way of using Allstate’s web portal, which makes the app feel a bit pointless.

Contacting Allstate over the phone

We called Allstate, asked several questions, and ultimately purchased a policy. Allstate’s rep was very polite and handled all of our inquiries competently, although they seemed slightly less knowledgeable than the other insurance agents we’ve bought policies from in the past. The call took a while, with a lot of pauses while they looked up information, which wasn’t our experience when we bought renters insurance from State Farm, for example.

As we said, there were several surprises on the call, like when we found out that identity theft protection wasn’t available in our state. None of this was the fault of the agent we spoke with, but it does underscore how different Allstate’s online and offline user experiences are.

The bottom line

We recommend buying your Allstate policy over the phone and not through their online application, as we don’t trust the info on their website. However, in all other respects (i.e. claims handling), their website is perfectly usable.

Takeaway: As with many other major insurers, Allstate’s online user experience is slightly below average; their customer service over the phone is about average.

What are Allstate’s consumer satisfaction ratings?

To get more reliable data on how Allstate treats their customers, we looked at three of their consumer satisfaction ratings. Specifically, we reviewed their:

  • J. D. Power rating
  • Better Business Bureau (BBB) customer reviews
  • NAIC complaints

Allstate’s J.D. Power rating: 841/1000 (about average)

J.D. Power regularly conducts a survey of the customers of every major insurance provider. They ask each customer how they’d rate their insurer in various categories, including pricing, claims handling, and customer service.

In 2020, Allstate’s renters insurance received a J.D. Power rating of 841/1000. That’s respectable — it places them in the top third of all insurers — but not exemplary. It’s 2 points higher than the mean score of 839, and 4 points higher than the median of 837. (Most of the scores fell into a fairly narrow range.)

Allstate’s Better Business Bureau customer reviews: 1.13/5 stars (about average)

Although we’re skeptical of the BBB’s own ratings, we find the customer reviews on their website to be valuable. Allstate has an average BBB customer score of 1.13 out of 5 stars, from a total of 271 reviews.

That’s not a great score, but it’s not as bad as it looks. 1.13 stars is actually just about average; it’s very rare for an insurance company to have a score above 2 stars, because most people only leave insurance reviews when they’re unhappy. Nobody likes dealing with insurance, and people who had a good experience are more likely to breathe a sigh of relief and do their best to forget about the whole thing.

Looking at Allstate’s reviews, we get the impression that they might be a bit stingier with their claims handling than some of their competitors, such as State Farm and USAA. This jives with what we’ve heard from independent insurance agents, who have said that in their experience Allstate was quicker to deny coverage to tenants they deemed to be a financial risk.

However, this isn’t a clear trend, and overall, we didn’t find Allstate’s BBB reviews particularly alarming. They’re pretty typical for an insurer of their size.

Allstate’s NAIC complaints (significantly better than average)

Each year, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) records how many complaints it received about each insurance company. In 2020, Allstate received just 1 complaint about their renters insurance.

That’s fewer complaints than most of their competitors, which is impressive given that they controlled 8.16% of the home and renters insurance market — the second-largest share after State Farm’s 17.87%.

Takeaway: Overall, we found Allstate’s customer satisfaction ratings to be about average.

Is Allstate financially stable?

Many reviews of insurers break down their finances by looking at metrics like their A.M. Best rating, which measures creditworthiness. The idea is that when your insurer’s finances are in good shape, they’ll be better able to pay out claims and less likely to drop your insurance policy.

We see the logic in that, and it’s true that sometimes, large-scale disasters can leave insurers scrambling for money. That’s common after major hurricanes, and it also happened after 2021’s Texas freeze, which resulted in a lot of ice-related claims that insurers weren’t prepared for.

However, when it comes to large insurers like Allstate, you really don’t have to worry about their finances. They’re a huge company with a very long track record, and they’ll be more than able to pay any renters insurance claim you’ll ever make.

When you consider smaller, regional insurers, it’s worth paying attention to their finances, but it’s not necessary when you buy from companies like Allstate.

Takeaway: Allstate’s finances are no cause for concern.

Does Allstate operate in your state?

Unlike some of their competitors, Allstate operates in every state. You can buy Allstate’s renters insurance no matter where you are.

Recap: Should you choose Allstate renters insurance?

Allstate isn’t a bad choice for renters insurance, although there isn’t a lot to set them apart from their competitors.

Allstate: Advantages

  • Because Allstate is a huge insurer with a lot of locations, if you prefer getting personalized service from an agent, you’ll be much happier with Allstate’s customer service than an internet-focused insurer like Lemonade.
  • Allstate has been around for more than 90 years. They have a long track record, and when you buy Allstate’s renters insurance, you know exactly what to expect.

Allstate: Disadvantages

  • There’s nothing that really distinguishes Allstate from their competitors. Their pricing and coverage are both average.
  • Some customers report that Allstate is reluctant to pay out claims, although that’s sometimes true of virtually all insurers.
  • The info on Allstate’s website isn’t always accurate, so it’s necessary to check with an agent. This is best done over the phone, so if you prefer handling your insurance online, you might be happier with another company.

Why should you choose Allstate renters insurance?

  • You prefer working with a local insurance agent: Because Allstate’s network is so large, you’ll always be able to get in touch with an agent in your area.
  • You have another Allstate insurance policy: Allstate offers a lot of different policies, and if you have their auto or life insurance, it makes sense to bundle your insurance together.
  • You might move to another state: Because Allstate operates in every US state, it’s easy for you to transfer your renters insurance if you move around frequently.

Why shouldn’t you choose Allstate renters insurance?

  • Price is your main concern: Because Allstate’s prices are only average, you might be able to get cheaper renters insurance from another company, such as State Farm, Nationwide, or Lemonade.
  • You don’t like talking on the phone: We strongly recommend buying your policy over the phone. You’ll probably also have to call someone at some point when you file a claim. If that’s a dealbreaker, Allstate’s renters insurance might not be right for you.

Allstate renters insurance: Our final rating

Overall, we rate Allstate’s renters insurance three stars out of five. (3/5)

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