Which insurance company is better? Usually this question is asked by policyholders who first draw up a policy, as well as those who had negative experience with insurance companies. Most often, the issue of timely payments for insured events and reliability are of interest, which, in the opinion of many, insurance companies with state support can provide.
Principles for choosing an insurer
Most often, the choice of company is influenced by subjective reasons, such as: the proximity of the office of the insurance company, the cost of the insurance policy, the competence of the employee or insurance agent. Some of these factors may matter in each case, but not be decisive. The main thing is the reliability of the insurance company and the ability to fulfill obligations under the policy. And this can be done with a greater degree of probability by insurance companies with state support. This means that even during a crisis, the insurer is able to make all payments. You can conduct your own analysis, based on reviews of insurance companies, their rating, and the study of official sites. To your own analysis, it is worth adding the recommendations of friends and relatives about their experience of cooperation. Today, there are more than a hundred companies in the insurance market. Therefore, the choice is difficult to make. To assist in the selection, there are independent rating agencies, associations of insurers, etc. that publish annual and quarterly ratings based on an analysis of the financial condition and volume of declared but not settled payment cases. This information can be safely trusted.
Insurance Company Ratings
The Russian rating agency “EXPERT RA” has been the longest in the market, based on its analysis, conclusions are drawn.
A rating is assigned based on the following factors:
- external factors, such as: the size and change of assets and equity, authorized capital, total insurance premium;
- whether the company is in some important stable market segments (associations), the company's reputation, brand recognition and price, obligations to supervisory authorities, insurance portfolio;
- management (owners, their financial indicators, whether the company is an affiliate of companies from other industries, which is owned, risk management, attitude to improving the quality of management, information infrastructure, availability of contracts with audit firms, access to these reports);
- geography of presence in the market (branch network).
- insurance business: insurance portfolio (its stability, types of insurance, riskiness as a percentage, reinsurance obligations);
- customer base (structure of customer base, prolongation, share of main customers, percentage of terminated contracts, percentage of existing insurance agents);
- reinsurance (reinsurance of risks, their size, reliability of reinsurance policy);
- financial indicators (current liquidity ratio, large payments, fulfillment of obligations thereon, availability of loans from the company, own funds, receivables);
- profitability and loss ratio (loss ratio, percentage of costs of doing business in the general indicator of collection of insurance premiums);
- investment policy (investment objects, investment portfolio, its profitability, percentage of affiliates and subsidiaries).
The rating assignment technique, taken on the example of the EXPERT RA agency, is given in order to make it clear how difficult it is to objectively assess the state of the company. Those. ratings based on word of mouth have the right to life, but they are subjective. Reviews are also a relative indicator, they are often custom-made or written in the wake of indignation, because there are constantly satisfied and somewhat dissatisfied insurers among clients. It is extremely difficult to calculate the percentage of real reviews and custom ones.
List of insurance companies with state participation
The best insurance company is one you can trust. Word of mouth transmission of information may be productive, but not in this case. As mentioned above, the reliability of the company is difficult to evaluate. But nevertheless, based on the conclusions of rating agencies, we give a list of Russian insurance companies with state participation: VTB Insurance, ROSGOSSTRAKH, RESO-Garantia, SOGAZ insurance group, Alfa Insurance, Ugoria insurance group.
VTB Insurance
The insurance group was founded in 2000. It is a system organization and the largest in Russia. It has 114 branches in various cities of Russia. Standard & Poor’s, a well-known American rating agency, assigned it a BB + long-term financial strength rating. This is the highest rate among domestic companies. EXPERT RA assigned VTB Insurance the highest A ++ rating. The company has licenses for all insurance products available on the market. Disadvantages: long-term loss settlement. Summarizing reviews about the company, we can say that there are few conflicts, a reliable company, but insurance products are expensive. Nonetheless, policyholders will prefer this company, especially those that have negative experience with other insurers.
ROSGOSSTRAKH
Longevity and the largest state insurance company, or rather, a group of organizations. Many apply to this company for a policy, because the network is very developed, and agencies are represented even in remote places. “EXPERT RA” put a rating of A ++ level. It has licenses for all types of insurance services, to a greater extent in the regions, the insurance portfolio consists of motor risks, i.e., compulsory motor liability insurance policies. Due to monopolization in remote places, agents often imposed additional insurance policies. After appealing to the antimonopoly committee, IJSC “Rosgosstrakh” temporarily revoked the license for insurance under compulsory motor liability insurance policies. In the reviews you can often read about the extremely prolonged waiting for payments, refusals of payments for no reason, especially in compulsory motor third-party liability insurance, but the court in this case is always on the side of the insured. They also write about an unreasonably underestimated damage assessment of this Russian insurance company with state support. The only plus in the reviews is a huge branch network and a large number of insurance agents.
SPAO RESO-Garantia
It is also a backbone company, founded in 1991. The policy is based on agent sales and agents with balanced insurance portfolios. It has more than 800 branches and more than 20 thousand agents. The number of customers - both legal and physical persons - more than 10 million.
Licenses for more than 100 types of insurance. Priorities: CTP, VHI, mortgage insurance. Standart & Poor's has assigned a rating of BB. Generalized reviews are related to the fact that the company bases its activities on the work of agents, and therefore reviews are mostly negative due to the incompetent work of specific agents.
SOGAZ Insurance Group
Systemically significant company. In terms of insurance premiums, it ranks second in Russia. The group includes both domestic insurance companies and foreign ones. More than 15 million individuals and 45 thousand legal entities have SOGAZ insurance policies.One of the areas is sponsorship (the company is the official insurer of all KHL championships). As with Rosgosstrakh, there were also reviews about imposing additional policies on compulsory motor liability insurance policies, refusing to issue a policy without concluding another one — on life insurance or property insurance for individuals. The pluses in the reviews include the prices for CASCO policies. Cons, as well as in all large companies, speak only about the human factor in the work of specific agencies and branches.
State Insurance Company Ugoria
Ugoria has been working in Russia for a long time. This company offers all standard insurance services. 
According to statistics, an organization has a reliability rating of A. It happens that it drops to B ++. Accordingly, it stands for "Reliable" and "Acceptable Reliability." Which is not too high. It is for this reason that people do not trust Ugoria too much. Many are skeptical of organizations with such a rating. This means that there are certain flaws that do not allow the company to work with 100% quality.
Alfa Insurance Group
It was founded in 1992. The company's policy is aimed at meeting the needs for insurance products of corporate clients. The company is one of the largest insurers. It also has licenses for more than 100 different types of insurance. A fairly decent insurance portfolio, more than 450 thousand companies and 25 million individuals have Alfa Insurance policies. The international agency Fitch Ratings assigned a rating of BB. The company is also very reliable. The reviews, like all companies, talk about late payments and poor service, specifically and unreasonably understated payments in the settlement of losses. They also note the veiled conditions in the voluntary insurance policies that occur when an insured event occurs and when applying for payment to the company.
The list of state-owned health insurance companies includes a certain number of organizations. Here are some of them: MAKS-M, ROSNO-MS, SOGAZ-Med, Rosgosstrakh-Medicine LLC, Capital Medical Insurance CJSC, etc.
Conclusion
The article is of an overview nature, each person must subjectively decide which company he should choose based on his analysis or the positive experience of his friends or relatives communicating with a particular company. But in any case, it must be borne in mind that delays in payments for insured events are a normal occurrence in all insurance companies, state ones including, most importantly, that they will pay in any case.
By the way, for more detailed and accurate information, you can contact the Unified State Register of insurance entities. Data from the state register of insurance companies will help a simple layman navigate the insurance market.