21st Century Auto Insurance Review: Ratings and Quotes (2024)

Exclusive to California, 21st Century offers higher rates than many other area insurers.

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Former data scientist for U.S. Geological Survey

Lindsay is a freelance personal finance writer currently pursuing her Series 65 license. She enjoys helping readers learn money management skills that improve their lives.

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Updated May 12, 2024

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If you live in California, you might have considered 21st Century as an option for car insurance. This company is owned by Farmers Insurance, and its coverage is limited solely to residents of the Golden State.

You might also find it tough to get any definitive information about how 21st Century auto insurance works. Fortunately, the company offers information on several discounts. Here’s what you should know about 21st Century so that you can determine if you want to consider this insurer for your next car insurance policy.

21st Century is considerably more expensive than most other insurers.

21st Century used to offer a mobile app, but it’s seemingly no longer available.

The company’s customer service seems to have taken a significant nosedive, with hundreds of reports of customers being unable to reach anyone at the company in a timely manner.[1]

How 21st Century stacks up

Insurify compared 21st Century to other lesser-known insurance companies, including AssuranceAmerica, American Alliance, First Chicago, and Anchor. Although details are also sparse for these options, a few key trends emerged.

Compared with these insurance companies, 21st Century charges higher rates and is available in a far smaller geographic area (just one state). Customer service availability and ratings, as judged by the number of complaints lodged against each company with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) tended to be roughly similar, however.

This table shows you how 21st Century stacks up against other similarly sized insurers.

Average cost of 21st Century auto insurance

21st Century charges an average premium of $121 for liability-only coverage and $267 for full coverage in California, the only state where it offers policies.

This is more expensive than the nationwide average of $104 and $214 per month for liability-only and full-coverage policies. It’s also higher than the statewide average for California, at $130 and $264 for liability-only and full coverage per month, respectively.

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21st Century’s rates start at $121 per month for liability coverage

21st Century Insurance reviews and ratings

21st Century may not provide a lot of up-front information that potential customers need to know to make an informed decision, but you can gain a better understanding by looking at outside reviews and ratings.

21st Century customer reviews

Read reviews from verified 21st Century customers.

Unexpected Rate Increase

Excellent

Bad Experience with 21st Century

Worse Every Time

21st Century ratings

Insurance is an important financial transaction, and that’s why many organizations have come up with rating systems to measure the quality of an insurance company in terms of customer satisfaction and financial strength.

Here are the most common metrics available for 21st Century:

AM Best: A (Excellent)

J.D. Power: Not rated

S&P: A

Moody’s: Not rated

NAIC Complaint Index: 1.86 (higher than average)

21st Century car insurance coverage options

Unfortunately, 21st Century doesn’t provide any definitive information about the specific insurance products it offers. Given that the state of California requires drivers to purchase a minimum amount of insurance, you can infer that 21st Century at least offers these types of standard coverages:

Bodily injury liability offers legal support and compensation in case you injure someone else while driving, such as by causing a car accident or hitting a pedestrian.

Property damage liability offers compensation and legal assistance in case you damage someone else’s property, such as their motor vehicles.

21st Century offers full-coverage policies as well. There isn’t any standard definition on what’s included in a full-coverage policy, but it typically includes the same protections as liability insurance as well as these types of coverages for your own vehicle:

Collision coverage offers compensation to fix or replace your car if it’s damaged while you’re driving it, whether you’re at fault or not.

Comprehensive coverage protects your car against damage from hitting wildlife or while you’re not driving the car, such as from storms.

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21st Century car insurance cost by state

Your quotes for car insurance depend on many factors, and one of the biggest is where you live. Some states are deemed riskier than others, and your rates can even vary by ZIP code.

Given that 21st Century is only available in the state of California, it’s hard to compare how prices would be different in other states. 

However, remember that while 21st Century is only available in California, its rates tend to exceed state averages.

21st Century auto insurance rates by driving history

Unsurprisingly, your driving history also plays a significant factor in how much you’ll be charged for car insurance. The cleaner your driving record, the more you’ll save on car insurance in general.

In addition, 21st Century also offers a couple discount options based on your driving record. You can save a minimum of 10% off your premium if you haven’t had any negative marks on your record in the past three years. If you go for five years or longer, that could help you score the lowest rates of all, with a discount of up to 20%.

Here’s the monthly cost for various 21st Century insurance policies for drivers with a clean record and drivers with common infractions.

21st Century car insurance cost by age

Your age also has an effect on your risk level as a driver. Younger drivers generally pay the highest rates of all, while older drivers pay less until they become seniors — at which point their insurance costs tick up slightly.

21st Century offers a 15% discount for students younger than 25 who receive a grade of “B” or better (it’s not clear if that’s GPA-based or any grade for individual classes). Drivers older than 55 can qualify for a 2% discount if they take a defensive driving course.

Here are the monthly average premiums that 21st Century insurance charges to people of different ages.

21st Century car insurance discounts

You’ve already read about a few of 21st Century’s car insurance discounts. But to give you a complete picture of these offerings, here’s the full list of its discounts, along with the amount.

21st Century vs. other insurance companies

Car insurance companies are abundant in California, and 21st Century isn’t your only option when it comes to purchasing a policy. Here’s how the company compares to similar insurers:

7+ years experience in data analysis

Ph.D. in Computational Biology

Konstantin has led data teams across multiple industries, including insurance, travel, and biology. He’s led Insurify’s engineering team for more than three years.

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Our editorial team spent 350 hours developing the Insurify Quality (IQ) Score and scoring insurance companies. The IQ Score objectively analyzes and calculates a score for insurers using more than 15 crucial criteria. Criteria are weighted by importance to the consumer — factors such as customer reviews and affordability influence the score more than availability and third-party ratings.

We rate each company on a 1 to 5 scale based on five categories: financial ratings, customer satisfaction, affordability, customer support and transparency, and availability. We update ratings once a year or as more recent information becomes available.

21st Century vs. AssuranceAmerica

AssuranceAmerica’s website looks like it was updated more recently, although it’s still frustratingly light on important details. It doesn’t discuss the discounts it offers (21st Century offers six). 21st Century is also more generous in that it offers roadside assistance at no extra cost with all plans. This is a paid option with AssuranceAmerica.

Neither company has a good reputation when it comes to customer complaints, but AssuranceAmerica’s is worse, with an average NAIC customer complaint rating of 3.43 versus 1.86 for 21st Century.[2] A score of 1.00 is the average. Scores that are higher, like these two insurers, indicate a higher-than-average amount of complaints for a company of its size.

However, AssuranceAmerica does have one big advantage over 21st Century: It’s available in 23 more states, and you can actually get a quote online versus having to call a phone number and getting no response for hours or days or weeks.

21st Century vs. American Alliance

American Alliance specializes in high-risk coverage for people who may have trouble getting affordable insurance through other options, such as drivers who have a DUI on their record. Unfortunately, American Alliance provides no details on its coverage options and pricing other than listing four potential discount options.

In fact, American Alliance’s website seems geared more toward swaying insurance agents looking for companies to partner with rather than individual customers looking to buy their own coverage. Like 21st Century, you can’t get a quote online. American Alliance requires you to inquire about quotes and services by contacting one of its independent agents.

There is one bright spot, however: American Alliance has much happier customers overall, with nearly a quarter as many NAIC-lodged complaints as compared to 21st Century (1.86 vs. 0.49).[2]

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How to file an auto insurance claim with 21st Century

Here’s how 21st Century’s claims process works:

Submit a claim. You can call the company’s claims phone number 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at 1 (888) 244-6163. Alternatively, you may be able to fill out a claims form by logging into your online account.

Meet with the adjuster. Two to three days later, you’ll be contacted by one of 21st Century’s claims adjusters. They’ll schedule a time to come out and see your car to evaluate it for damage and coverage potential.

Make repairs. Once your adjuster gives you the go-ahead, you can take your car to any repair shop you want. Alternatively, if the adjuster deems it a total loss, you may receive a payout for it.

21st Century insurance FAQs

Still have questions about 21st Century auto insurance? You can find some additional information here.

Is 21st Century legitimate?

Yes. 21st Century is licensed to operate in dozens of states despite only offering motor vehicle insurance to California residents. However, it was fined $50,000 in 2007 for 14 violations of California state law, and the insurer was the target of a class-action lawsuit filed in California in 2022 alleging that it didn’t comply with state-ordered premium refunds during the pandemic.

What is the average cost of 21st Century car insurance?

21st Century charges an average of $187 for liability coverage and $402 for a full-coverage policy. This is much higher than other insurance companies, such as State Farm and USAA.

Is 21st Century good at paying claims?

21st Century Insurance has a financial strength rating of A (Excellent) as judged by AM Best. However, there’s no independent, publicly available data about customer satisfaction with the claims process, so it’s difficult to say how good 21st Century is at paying claims.

Is 21st Century expensive?

Yes. The cost of car insurance from 21st Century car insurance is much higher than the national average for other insurers. If you’re looking for an affordable price, you’ll likely be much better off with other insurers, although it doesn’t hurt to contact the company for car insurance quotes.

Methodology

Insurify data scientists analyzed more than 90 million quotes served to car insurance applicants in Insurify’s proprietary database to calculate the premium averages displayed on this page. These premiums are real quotes that come directly from Insurify’s 50+ partner insurance companies in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Quote averages represent the median price for a quote across the given coverage level, driver subset, and geographic area.

Unless otherwise specified, quoted rates reflect the average cost for drivers between 20 and 70 years old with a clean driving record and average or better credit (a credit score of 600 or higher).

Liability-only premium averages correspond to policies with the following coverage limits:

Quotes for Allstate, Farmers, GEICO, State Farm, and USAA are estimates based on Quadrant Information Services’ database of auto insurance rates.

Sources

Lindsay VanSomeren is a freelance personal finance writer living in Suquamish, WA. Her work has appeared with FICO, Credit Karma, The Balance, and more. She enjoys helping people learn how to manage their money better so they can live the life they want.

15+ years in content creation

7+ years in business and financial services content

Chris is a seasoned writer/editor with past experience across myriad industries, including insurance, SAS, finance, Medicare, logistics, marketing/advertising, and many more.

Read Editorial Guidelines

Featured in

7+ years experience in data analysis

Ph.D. in Computational Biology

Konstantin has led data teams across multiple industries, including insurance, travel, and biology. He’s led Insurify’s engineering team for more than three years.

Read Editorial Guidelines

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