21st Century Auto Insurance

21st Century Insurance is a 51 year old company, initially founded by Louis W. Foster, as 20th Century Insurance. The founder had been in automobile insurance sales since 21 years prior and brought that experience along to making the company an initial success using tried, and true, methods of effective risk management, and marketing. The company has changed ownership, and management, quite a bit, but remains successful due to smart business practices and a high customer satisfaction rate. 21st Century Insurance is able to offer lower premiums to customers by cutting out the middleman, avoiding the use of agents, or brokers, and dealing directly with their clients. This practice cuts out mark-ups associated with these practices used by other companies thereby reducing the cost to their policyholders.

Another business practice, that has made them successful, is the care they take to ensure customer satisfaction and stay out of the public eye for negative reasons. They have successfully avoided the scandals (ranging from non-payment of valid claims, to bullying of their policyholders) that plague their large competitors in the market. Instead they have maintained a clean, albeit humble reputation that has served to give them steady performance over the years.

Following the same pattern, they advertise minimally and look to customer satisfaction to drive growth and success. The advertisements that they do use, however, are straight to the point and avoid the gimmicks associated with other large companies (the GEICO gecko etc.). Facts and a few comparisons to their rivals comprise most of their effective ad campaigns. These appeal well to some demographics that simply want insurance they can rely on and not one that knows how to make attractive advertising, although interesting advertising, admittedly, would attract more attention.

The company also maintains an online presence and will give visitors a quote, on the spot, from the comfort of their homes (they are asked initially for their zip code). Customers can also set up an online account for quick, mobile access to their policy and customer service relating to it via the internet. This contrasts well to having to call the company and wait, often for an inordinate length of time, to receive assistance with matters as simple as queries about policy coverage - common in some other companies.

21st Century Insurance has been around for many decades and, despite their relatively low profile, offer quality service that is as good, if not better, than that of their more heavily advertised competitors. Their dedication to their policyholders, and smart management, has made them successful without all the expense of self-promotion, incurred by others. This adds to their advantage of avoiding agent, and broker, mark-ups and enables them to offer highly competitive premiums for comparable levels of coverage.