Liberty Mutual is the fifth-largest casualty and property insurance group in the United States. With a market share of 7.4%, this insurer is the 3rd largest home insurer in the country.
Since 1912, Liberty Mutual has been providing coverage solutions for individuals and businesses on a global scale. With an extensive selection of insurance policies that range from auto to pet insurance, Liberty Mutual makes bundling policies a breeze.
Speaking of policies, home insurance with Liberty Mutual contains all the basic protection you need to save your house (and your wallet) from sudden catastrophes. Their profitable home insurance products have the lineage and coverage that stand the test of time.
Liberty Mutual claims to understand that progress only happens when homeowners feel secure. If that’s the case, how well does Liberty Mutual hold up to this belief? Does Liberty Mutual truly provide quality home insurance and services to safeguard its customers? Keep reading to find out!
In this review, we’ll tackle Liberty Mutual from the ground up. Let’s take a closer look at their home insurance coverage and customer service. While we’re at it, we’ll check on their financial stability ratings, claims process, and any potential discounts we can find.
Liberty Mutual homeowners insurance coverages
With Liberty Mutual, you can get not only the standard safeguards but also a vast array of add-ons that let you tailor your policy to your needs. Plus, you can take advantage of their coverage in every single state, whether you’re already a resident or planning to relocate. This way, Liberty Mutual enables you to protect your dwelling anywhere you go.
Using their online quote tool, we put these coverages to the test. We used our test address in Central Arkansas. This home is about 1,220 square feet and was built in the 80s. It’s a tri-level home with a few safety features and an older roof.
Once we plugged this address into their quote tool, we went through a series of qualifying questions. This was all to make sure we got the right coverage for the right price. After the process was over, these are the coverages we were offered:
Coverages | Limits |
Dwelling | $206,700 |
Personal Property | $103,350 (50%) |
Other Structures | $20,670 (10%) |
Loss of Use | $41,340 (20%) |
Personal Liability | $300,000 |
Medical Payments | $1,000 |
Wind/Hail Deductible | $4,134 (2%) |
All Perils Deductible | $2,067 (1%) |
Even with personal liability being higher than we usually see, these seem to be the elemental coverages you should expect from your home insurer. For Arkansas, Liberty Mutual has a higher wind and hail deductible to prevent homeowners from filing small claims due to frequent windstorms in the area. We were also offered a few optional coverages we could add to our policy. These included:
- Home Protector Plus: This raises the Home Rebuild and Personal Property limits. This endorsement is essential to ensure that you are adequately covered for any unexpected expenses that may arise during the home reconstruction process or when replacing lost or damaged items.
- Water Backup and Sump Pump Overflow: This basic add-on secures your abode and personal possessions against any potential water backup problems that may occur.
- Home Computer & Smartphone Coverage: This provides extra protection for your electronics, including reduced deductibles and distinct coverage limits for your personal belongings.
- Blanket Jewelry Coverage: You can obtain coverage for your jewelry that is independent of your Personal Property coverage, giving you a distinct level of protection.
It’s worth mentioning that we’ve been offered a collection of other endorsements from other companies. For example, we like to see endorsements or additional policies that cover earthquakes. Otherwise, we were offered standard coverage we find necessary for key perils and damages.
Keep reading to find out how much we were quoted.
Annual premiums & discounts
If you’re not privy to southern weather, it helps to know that wind perils are the reason for this state being among the most expensive for home insurance. In fact, Arkansas is responsible for the highest annual premium increases. Knowing this, we anticipated a higher-than-usual annual payment.
Contrarily, what we found was incredible. Liberty Mutual offers us this coverage for less than the average rate, and the price beats all other competitors we’ve previously reviewed. Not only that but we were even offered higher dwelling coverage than some other insurers for thousands less. Check out how Liberty Mutual compares to the competition we’ve reviewed:
Insurer | Dwelling Coverage | Annual Premium |
Hippo | $200,000 | $2,075 |
Farmers | $260,000 | $1,300 |
Costco CONNECT | $348,300 | $3,172 |
Allstate | $240,097 | $1,540 |
State Farm | $291,000 | $1,454 |
Farm Bureau | $154,000 | $1,663 |
Progressive | $203,000 | $2,183 |
GEICO | $190,000 | $1,979 |
Liberty Mutual | $206,700 | $1,087 |
Our incredible price of $1,087 a year, or $90 a month, comes after several discounts are applied. Otherwise, we’d be looking at $6,297 in annual premiums, according to Liberty Mutual’s pricing tool. Let’s look at some of those savings that saved our budget over 5 grand:
- Liberty Mutual member: When you’re part of a certain professional group or affiliation, you receive discounts on your annual premium.
- Online purchase: You can receive savings when you complete your purchase on the Liberty Mutual website.
- Insured to value: This is a discount that you can get when you insure your home for 100% of the cost to replace it.
- Protective devices: We received this discount for having safety features installed in the home, like a burglar and fire alarm.
- Preferred billing: You can receive this discount like we did when you choose a payment plan preferred by Liberty Mutual. These include automatic payments, mortgage billings, or paying in full.
- Paperless: Get a discount when you sign your policy documents electronically.
There are also some other discounts you could be eligible for. We can’t even imagine the savings if we qualified for more discounts, like:
- Claims-free: You can earn savings when you go 5 years or more without filing a claim. If you remain claim-free for 3 years with Liberty Mutual, you can receive even more savings with their Safe Homeowner Program.
- Early shopper: If you start a quote and buy insurance before your current policy expires, you can save money as a sort of sign-on bonus.
- Newly purchased home: Liberty Mutual provides you with celebratory savings when you buy a new home.
- Newly renovated home: You’ll save some money when your home is newly renovated. This might include new plumbing or electrical work.
- New roof: Save a few extra dollars when you let Liberty Mutual know that your roof is new.
- Multi-policy: Per usual, you can get discounts when you have more than one policy open with Liberty Mutual.
Liberty Mutual mobile & manufactured home insurance
Liberty Mutual offers mobile home and manufactured home insurance. Mobile home insurance works in much the same way as a standard home insurance policy with a few differences. Much like a standard homeowners policy, Liberty Mutual’s mobile home policy provides dwelling, other structure, loss of use, personal property, personal liability, and medical payments to other coverage.
Also, like a typical homeowners insurance policy, perils such as earthquakes, normal wear and tear, flooding, and theft are excluded from coverage. In some cases, a mobile home owner may not be covered to the fullest extent possible under a standard policy. Luckily, Liberty Mutual offers a variety of optional add-on coverages that a homeowner can choose from.
Mobile homes do present some additional risk to Liberty Mutual and other insurance companies compared to a typical home due to the mobile nature and non-solidified foundation. This may raise the premium slightly. Other factors that go into the premium price are location, size of the mobile home, and age/condition of the mobile home. Liberty Mutual does offer discounts to mobile homeowners for various reasons, which can help reduce the cost of the policy of the owner. Talk with your local Liberty Mutual agent today to see what options are available to you and what discounts you may be eligible for as well.
Liberty Mutual customer satisfaction reviews
When it comes to service and quality, nobody can vouch for a company better than its customers. As such, we find it of utmost importance to have customer reviews that dictate positive experiences and easy processes.
On the contrary, Liberty Mutual doesn’t seem to have its people at its back. Liberty Mutual received a higher-than-average 3.81 on the national complaint index in 2022 for homeowners insurance. This is well above the set average of 1.00. To make matters worse, of all the types of policies we mentioned earlier, Liberty Mutual’s homeowners insurance received the worst ratings.
The BBB, though accrediting Liberty Mutual with an A+ rating, notes over 2,000 complaints levied against the company in the last 3 years. Over a thousand customer reviews later, the BBB shows an average of 1.1 out of 5 stars for customer satisfaction.
When checking online reviews from actual homeowners insured with Liberty Mutual, we found mixed reviews. Some customers are satisfied and are pleased with the service they have received. While other homeowners are upset with poor communication, rudeness, and unprofessionalism from claims adjusters and agents.
According to J.D. Power’s overall customer satisfaction study for 2022, Liberty Mutual ranked below average among other home insurance providers. They scored 805/1000, while the industry average was 819/1000.
Processing claims
To have your claim processed by Liberty Mutual, you can go to their claims center on the Liberty Mutual website. You can also file a claim on the go through their mobile app.
Liberty Mutual says its filing process takes less than 1 minute. Unfortunately, this isn’t indicative of quick claims or easy payouts. Claim handling was the most complained about Liberty Mutual feature in 2022, according to the NAIC. These complaints cite state-specific claims issues, delays, and unsatisfactory settlements as the top 3 issues.
Some of the customers have left positive reviews about their claims experiences with Liberty Mutual. They praise the insurer for the quick handling of their claim and a fair payout. At the same time, there are quite a few reviews from policyholders complaining about their claims process. Customers are often left waiting for resolutions and callbacks. In some cases, this lack of urgency left homeowners living in hotels for months, causing even more damage to their homes. As mentioned previously, lack of communication is the downfall of this company – especially when it comes to their claims.
Financial strength
Having over a hundred years in the industry should point to reputable financial stability. In this case, Liberty Mutual meets our expectations.
According to AM Best, Liberty Mutual has an excellent “A” rating for financial security and long-term issuer credit. Weiss Ratings seems to be in the same ballpark, providing this insurer with a “B-” for financial stability.
Overall, Liberty Mutual is among the lower 3rd percentile of companies that display good financial security. They have the resources available to deal with a variety of economic conditions and are currently stable with a positive outlook.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for standard coverage to safeguard your home and belongings for a price that is more than fair, it’s worth getting a quote from Liberty Mutual. They could provide you with the cheapest rates you’ve seen so far, all while offering you the most basic protection for your home.
You might not see as many endorsements with Liberty Mutual as you would with other insurers. Luckily, the lack of these extra endorsements paves the way for rates that are very affordable with discounts that help.
Liberty Mutual is not known for being incredibly friendly in terms of service or claims. Otherwise, if you’re more concerned about protecting your home for the lowest rates, this may be the insurer for you!