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GEICO Renters Insurance Review

GEICO sells renters insurance from other insurance providers. We recommend buying from them if you have their auto insurance and you qualify for a discount, but not in other circumstances.

Robert Jellison June 25, 2021 Get a Renters Insurance Quote
GEICO Renters Insurance Review

Table of Contents

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

Before we review GEICO’s renters insurance, we have to address something important:

Does GEICO offer renters insurance?

No, GEICO doesn’t technically offer renters insurance. Although you can buy a policy from them, they won’t actually provide your insurance themselves.

Instead, they’ll connect you with one of their partners. That company will write your policy, and if you have to file a renters insurance claim, they’re the ones who will review it and decide whether or not to pay you — not GEICO.

In other words, GEICO functions like an agency that connects people with actual renters insurance companies. GEICO’s partners include:

  • AIG
  • Arrowhead Underwriting Companies
  • Chubb
  • FedNat
  • First Insurance Company of Hawaii
  • The Hartford
  • Heritage Property and Casualty Insurance Company
  • Hawaiian Insurance and Guaranty Company, Limited
  • Homeowners of America
  • Homesite
  • Island Insurance
  • Lemonade
  • Liberty Mutual
  • Narragansett Bay Insurance Company
  • National General Underwriting Companies
  • Privilege Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange
  • RLI Insurance Co
  • SageSure Insurance
  • Security First Ins Company
  • Stillwater Insurance Group
  • Travelers
  • Universal Ins Co of North America
  • Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Company
  • Zephyr Insurance Co

When you buy renters insurance from GEICO, they might connect you with any one of those companies. There’s no way to tell which one you’ll get until you contact them.

Obviously, the company that you get will determine the quality of the insurance you’ll receive. We’ll explain what this means to you further down in this review.

Evaluating GEICO renters insurance – the 7 factors to consider

You can evaluate GEICO’s renters insurance by asking the following 7 questions:

  • How expensive is GEICO renters insurance?
  • What does GEICO renters insurance cover?
  • Can you bundle GEICO renters insurance with any other policies?
  • How easy is it to buy a renters insurance policy and file a claim?
  • What are GEICO’s consumer satisfaction ratings?
  • Is GEICO financially stable?
  • Does GEICO provide renters insurance in your state?

In GEICO’s case, because they sell policies from many different companies, the answers to these questions are hard to predict. We found this was a significant downside to their renters insurance.

How expensive is GEICO renters insurance?

We conducted a nationwide survey of the prices offered by every major renters insurance provider and found that, on average, policies from GEICO cost $21.57 per month. That’s pretty close to the average price of renters insurance, which is approximately $20 per month.

GEICO’s renters insurance prices are a bit complicated, because GEICO doesn’t actually set them themselves — their partners do. However, our survey showed that most of the time, their partners’ prices are fairly standard.

Takeaway: Overall, we found that GEICO’s pricing was about average.

What does GEICO renters insurance cover?

Since GEICO doesn’t write their own policies, there’s no way to tell exactly what yours will cover. Fortunately, almost all renters insurance policies provide the same four types of coverage:

  • Personal property coverage: If your personal property is damaged by an event known as a covered peril, your insurance provider will reimburse you for the damage.
  • Personal liability coverage: If you accidentally damage someone else’s property or injure them, your provider will arrange your legal defense and pay for any damages the injured party is awarded.
  • Guest medical coverage: Similarly, if someone gets hurt or sick in your home, your provider will cover a certain amount of their medical bills, even if you aren’t found to be liable.
  • Loss-of-use coverage: If a covered peril damages your home badly enough that you have to move out for a while, your provider will pay for your hotel room and your other additional living expenses until you can move back in.

Your coverage may vary

Again, although all policies provide the same basic types of coverage, the details depend on which company GEICO connects you with.

Some of their partners provide interesting coverage options. For instance, Assurant is one of the few renters insurance providers that cover bed bugs, and Travelers offers all-risks renters insurance, which is relatively rare.

The problem is that GEICO will choose your insurer for you, so there’s no guarantee you’ll get the coverage that you want. The inability to pick your insurer or research them in advance is a serious problem with GEICO’s renters insurance.

Takeaway: Overall, we found that, due to their unpredictability, GEICO’s coverage options were below average.

Can you bundle GEICO renters insurance with other policies?

Most insurance providers allow you to bundle their policies together for a discount. These can be considerable — in extreme cases, you can get renters insurance practically for free.

GEICO is mainly known as an auto insurance provider, and so it’s no surprise that they offer a discount when you buy renters and auto insurance. However, the exact discount you’ll receive depends on where you live.

For instance, in Virginia, GEICO offered us a 5% bundling discount on renters and auto insurance. Conversely, in California, our agent informed us that we weren’t eligible for a discount on auto insurance at all — just on renters insurance, which was disappointing. Renters insurance is so cheap that discounts on it don’t mean much, whereas a 5–10% discount on auto can mean saving dozens of dollars per month.

Should you bundle GEICO renters and auto insurance?

If you have GEICO auto insurance (or you want to get it) and they offer a decent discount in your area, it’s probably worth bundling your policies. However, you’ll have to call an agent for details. There’s a chance your discount won’t be terribly impressive.

Takeaway: GEICO’s bundling discounts are variable. Call an agent for more information.

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

It’s possible to buy a renters insurance policy from GEICO by calling a local agent or by taking a short questionnaire on their website.

Buying from an agent

GEICO is a large insurer, and they have enough agents that you won’t have a hard time finding one in your area.

We called a GEICO agent and asked a few questions about renters insurance. It was a short conversation, but our agent was helpful and seemed happy to talk to us even though we made it clear we weren’t ready to actually buy a policy yet, which we appreciated.

However, even though we had a good experience, we still don’t recommend buying renters insurance from GEICO over the phone. That’s because your agent won’t be able to tell you who your actual provider will be until partway through the process, and they’ll ask you to finalize your purchase before you’ve had time to research your insurer.

Of course, you can just tell your agent that you need a few minutes to think and call back later, but it’s honestly easier to just buy a policy from GEICO’s website.

Buying online

Like their competitors, GEICO has a short questionnaire on their website that you can complete to get a renters insurance quote. You’ll have to answer a few questions about yourself, the building you live in, and your insurance needs. It’s an easy process that won’t take you more than five minutes.

Once you’re done, GEICO will match you with one of their renters insurance partners. You can save your quote and navigate away from the page to research them, which we recommend doing before you actually make your purchase.

Filing a claim

Although you can pay your monthly renters insurance premiums through GEICO’s website, if you have to file a renters insurance claim, you’ll have to use your actual provider’s system.

Once you know who your provider will be, we recommend spending a little time playing around on their website to find out whether their online interface is intuitive or frustrating. You should also read their customer reviews to find out whether they have a reputation for quickly and fairly processing claims.

Takeaway: We recommend buying a policy through GEICO’s website, which is reasonably well-designed. Their claims process depends entirely on which insurer you get.

What are GEICO’s consumer satisfaction ratings?

Generally, to gauge how a given insurer treats their customers, we look at several metrics of consumer satisfaction, including their J.D. Power rating, their Better Business Bureau (BBB) customer reviews, and their National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) complaints.

In GEICO’s case, we didn’t do that, since they don’t actually provide renters insurance themselves. It’s more important to look at their partners’ reviews.

GEICO’s partners have mixed reviews

Many of GEICO’s partners are too small to have received J.D. Power ratings, but most of them have Better Business Bureau pages, and we found that their ratings varied wildly. For instance, GEICO sells policies from:

  • Assurant, who has a below-average score of 1.03/5.
  • Homesite and Travelers, who have relatively average scores of 1.15/5 and 1.17/5.
  • Stillwater and Lemonade, who have very high BBB scores of 3.72/5 and 4.19/5

These ratings suggest that GEICO’s partners provide insurance of varying quality. Again, we recommend carefully researching your provider before finalizing your purchase.

A note on Assurant

The reviews on GEICO’s ConsumerAffairs page suggest that they frequently sell policies from Assurant, which jives with our experience (GEICO tried to sell us one of their policies in California). If GEICO offers you a policy from Assurant, be careful.

As we said, Assurant’s BBB score is below average, with reviewers citing poor customer service and a difficult claims handling process. Moreover, in 2020, Assurant received 31 complaints with the NAIC, which is staggeringly high given their small share of the renters insurance market (under 1%). By contrast, Allstate, who controls more than 8% of the market, received just 1 complaint. Given these scores, we suggest being very careful about buying insurance from Assurant.

Takeaway: GEICO’s customer satisfaction ratings are highly variable — but if they try to sell you a policy from Assurant, look out.

Is GEICO financially stable?

As a subsidiary of Berkshire-Hathaway, one of the largest and most successful companies in the country, GEICO is financially stable. However, the insurance company they connect you with — the one who’ll actually pay (or deny) your insurance claims — won’t have GEICO’s financial backing.

GEICO is a well-run company, and they obviously aren’t going to work with any insurers that are on the verge of bankruptcy. However, they do partner with a few companies that have short track records and uncertain futures, including Lemonade. As we noted in our review of Lemonade’s renters insurance, Lemonade hasn’t been around long enough to receive an AM Best rating (which measures creditworthiness), and they’re not yet profitable.

Is this a problem?

Unfortunately, the answer is a decidedly unsatisfying “maybe.” Your insurer’s finances can affect you in limited ways.

You don’t have to worry about your insurer denying legitimate claims because they ran out of money. The insurance industry has a lot of safeguards that prevent that from happening. Even if your insurer goes bankrupt (an extreme and unlikely scenario), an organization called the state insurance guaranty association will step in and make sure that you get your money, one way or another.

However, if GEICO pairs you with an insurer that has shaky finances, it can affect you in subtler ways. For example, if your insurer is struggling, they probably won’t provide very good customer service because they won’t be able to afford a large support team.

There’s no way to research your insurer’s finances until you call GEICO and find out who they are. As you’re probably gathering, this lack of certainty is a big problem with GEICO’s renters insurance.

Takeaway: GEICO is financially stable, but their partners’ stability is uncertain. Research your insurer carefully.

Does GEICO offer renters insurance in your state?

GEICO sells policies in all 50 states, as well as Washington, D.C. If you decide to buy a renters insurance policy from them, you can do so wherever you live.

Recap: Should you choose GEICO renters insurance?

When we evaluate insurance companies, we mainly look at their pricing, their coverage options, and their customer service.

In GEICO’s case, because they sell from other insurers and give you no control over whose policy you’ll get, we aren’t able to rate them very highly in any of these categories.

It’s not that their renters insurance is bad — it’s that it’s an unknown quantity. Sometimes a little uncertainty is fun, but not when it comes to insurance.

GEICO: Advantages

  • Because they’re one of the largest car insurance providers, a lot of people are able to get bundling discounts on renters and auto insurance from GEICO.

GEICO: Disadvantages

  • GEICO doesn’t offer a discount on auto insurance in every state — sometimes they only offer discounts on renters insurance.
  • GEICO isn’t really a renters insurance provider. They’re a renters insurance reseller, and they don’t let you pick the provider that will actually write your policy.
  • We have serious reservations about some of GEICO’s partners, most notably Assurant, who’s received a worrying number of NAIC complaints.

Why should you get GEICO renters insurance?

  • You can get a decent bundling discount: If you also have GEICO’s auto insurance and they’ll give you a good bundling discount, they might be your cheapest option overall.

Why shouldn’t you get GEICO renters insurance?

  • You can’t get a discount: If you don’t have GEICO’s car insurance or they don’t offer decent discounts in your state, we recommend getting renters insurance from another provider — one that you can actually pick yourself.
  • They match you with Assurant: There’s no nice way to say this: Assurant’s renters insurance just isn’t very good. If GEICO tries to sell you one of their policies, we recommend taking your business elsewhere, even if GEICO offers you a discount.

GEICO renters insurance: Our final rating

Overall, we rate GEICO’s renters insurance two stars out of five. (2/5)

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