JD Power says total losses weigh on insurance customer satisfaction
Auto insurance customer satisfaction with claims handling practices depends on repairability, according to a new study from JD Power.
According to the 2026 U.S. Auto Claims Satisfaction Study, total loss determinations decrease overall customer satisfaction by 12 points.
The study shows that overall customer satisfaction with the auto insurance claims process improves 4 points (on a 1,000-point scale) when damages are repairable. This is the third consecutive year of declining satisfaction for total loss claims, declining 46 points since 2023.
Overall, 26% of auto insurance claims were classified as total losses in 2026, up from just 16% four years ago. JD Power notes that vehicle repairs have become more costly, more customers are keeping their vehicles on the road longer, and higher deductibles are removing smaller repairs from the claim process.
The overall auto claims customer satisfaction score is the same as last year at 700. Amica ranks highest in overall customer satisfaction at 775, followed by Nationwide (743) and Automobile Club of Southern CA (AAA) (740).
“A complex mix of trends are conspiring to make this an incredibly challenging market environment for managing auto insurance claims customer satisfaction,” said Mark Garrett, JD Power’s director of global insurance intelligence, in the press release.
“On the positive side, rates are coming down and repair cycle times have improved dramatically, so customers who can have their vehicles fixed are showing high levels of satisfaction with the claims experience. However, persistent affordability challenges have many customers keeping vehicles longer or making changes to their policy, such as dropping rental coverage or taking on higher insurance deductibles. Additionally, many customers are upside down on their auto loans, which means the payoff in a total loss scenario can be less than they owe on their vehicles. All of these can make for a poor customer experience in the event of a total loss.”
Total loss customer satisfaction scores are lowest (490) when insurer payouts don’t cover what the customer still owes on their vehicle loan, according to the study. Among total loss customers with vehicle loans, 25% received payouts that were less than what they owed.
JD Power notes that repair cycle times are improving, down to 15.3 days through Q1 and 10 days less than in Q1 2024.
In August, Enterprise Mobility reported that the overall length of rental (LOR) for collision-related rentals in Q2 2026 was 15.1 days, the same as Q2 2025.
Overall customer satisfaction scores are highest (804) when customers completely agree that their insurer provided a seamless experience across channels. Satisfaction scores are lowest (390) when customers disagree with that statement. Disagreement often comes from not understanding explanations, using multiple channels to ask questions, or digital tools not working as expected, according to JD Power.
“Currently, insurers are delivering a seamless cross-channel experience just 54% of the time, one of the lowest-performing key performance indicators in the study,” JD Power says.
The study examines trust, fairness of settlement, people, time to settle a claim, communication, ease of resolving a claim, ease of starting a claim, and digital channels in auto claims experiences of customers from the largest insurance providers across the U.S.
The 2026 study is based on survey responses from 8,261 auto insurance customers who settled a claim within the past nine months before responding to the survey. The survey was fielded from September 2025 through August 2026.
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