GEICO climbs four places to fourth, leaving the top four insurers within three points of each other, as policyholders handle more tasks on their own and app users show growing interest in virtual assistants

New York, NY, Nov. 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Corporate Insight (CI), the leading provider of competitive intelligence and customer experience research to the financial services, insurance and healthcare industries, today announced the release of its 2026 P&C Digital Experience Benchmark, which evaluates the websites and mobile apps of 18 leading personal lines insurers on functionality, design, navigation and usability.

Now in its fourth year, the benchmark assesses insurers across seven categories: Account Information, Mobile, Account Servicing, Design & Navigation, Profile & Settings, Support, and Prospect Experience. It evaluates 35 subcategories and more than 160 attributes, with category weightings drawn from a survey of more than 1,500 P&C policyholders.

"Both USAA and GEICO gained five points in this year’s benchmark, showing that firms are competing and investing in digital experiences,” said Jake Littman, insurance research manager at Corporate Insight. “With scores this close, an insurer planning its next digital investment needs to know which everyday tasks policyholders value most and where competitors have already improved them, because one well-executed update can turn an average digital experience into a leading one.”

Key Findings

State Farm holds first for a fourth year as Allstate, USAA and GEICO close in

State Farm scores 79 out of 100, unchanged from 2025, and finishes first for the fourth straight year. Allstate and USAA tie for second at 78. Allstate gains one point, while USAA gains five and climbs three places. USAA’s redesign replaces its legacy payment page with a side panel, so policyholders can pay without leaving their current page. Policyholders can also preview ID cards before printing. GEICO matches USAA’s five-point gain, rising four places to fourth with a score of 76 after making ID cards easier to find, adding saved quotes and expanding payment options. Liberty Mutual and Nationwide tie for fifth at 75.

Category wins are spread across six insurers

USAA ranks first in Account Information and Profile & Settings, while State Farm leads Mobile. GEICO, Allstate and American Family top Account Servicing, Support and Prospect Experience, respectively. Farmers ranks first in Design & Navigation. Half of the 18 insurers finish first or second in at least one category, showing that firms outside the top five overall can still set the standard for specific experiences.

Insurers score higher on usability than functionality

In the 2026 benchmark, insurers average a score of 78 on usability and 64 on functionality. Usability combines a firm’s Design & Navigation score with its Ease of Use score; functionality covers all other framework attributes. Nationwide leads usability at 88, followed by Amica (87) and Allstate (86). USAA leads functionality at 82 but scores 69 on usability, below the benchmark average. Mercury Insurance shows the reverse pattern, with above-average usability (80) and below-average functionality (58).

Policyholders do more on their own and contact their insurers less

Policyholder satisfaction is up: 89.2% are satisfied with their carrier, versus 86.4% in 2025, and 75.2% describe their insurer’s digital platform as modern. More policyholders are handling routine tasks on their own. The share who accessed an ID card online in the past six months rose 3.1 percentage points from 2025, and the share who paid a premium online rose 2.2 percentage points. Contact with insurers fell: the share who sent a secure message dropped 3.4 percentage points and the share who called a service line dropped 2.6 percentage points. ID cards rank as the most important feature on both the website and the mobile app, consistent with insurers’ focus on ID cards and payments in their 2026 updates.

App users want more support, including from virtual assistants

App and website users are moving in opposite directions. Since 2025, the share of app users rating features as important has risen 1.3 percentage points on average, while the share of website users has fallen 2.1 percentage points. Virtual assistants (VAs) show the widest split between channels: 44.5% of app users rate VAs as important versus 27.6% of website users, a gap that grew nearly 10 percentage points in a year. Carrier offerings lag that demand. Consumer-facing AI remains rare, and most chatbots still run on rules or basic natural language processing. Mercury’s virtual assistant shows what a stronger version looks like: it explains what it can do, offers a clear route to a live agent and summarizes a user’s policy on request.

“Website users mostly want reliable access to core tasks, while app users are asking for more help inside the app, from live chat to virtual assistants,” Littman added. “Insurers that plan one roadmap for both channels will struggle to serve either group well, and insurtechs that already let customers buy coverage and file claims through chat are showing policyholders what to expect next.”

Access the Report

Organizations can purchase the full 2026 P&C Digital Experience Benchmark from Corporate Insight. Journalists can request the full rankings, category-level scores and an analyst interview by contacting CI’s press team.

Insurers included in this study

Allstate, American Family, Amica, Automobile Club of Southern California, Auto-Owners Insurance, Chubb, CSAA Insurance Group, Erie Insurance, Farmers, GEICO, Liberty Mutual, Mercury Insurance, Nationwide, Progressive, State Farm, The Hartford, Travelers, USAA

About Corporate Insight

Corporate Insight (CI) delivers competitive intelligence, user experience research and consulting services to the nation’s leading financial services, insurance and healthcare organizations. As the recognized industry leader in customer experience research for over 30 years, CI offers a research platform and unique approach of analyzing the actual customer experience to help organizations advance their competitive position in the marketplace.

CONTACT: Patrick Flood
Corporate Insight
pflood@corporateinsight.com