Like premiums for home and life insurance, auto insurance rates are on the rise around the world. In the United Kingdom and Australia, “auto insurance premium growth outpaced inflation and disposable income growth over the past three years,” according to the 2025 Global Insurance Outlook report from the Deloitte Center for Financial Services. In the United States, the average cost of auto insurance increased by 12% from 2024 to 2025, as calculated by Bankrate’s annual report on the sector.
What’s to blame for the price hike? The Zebra, an online insurance comparison platform, points to rising repair costs, changes in government regulations and increasing climate disasters (namely wildfires, flooding, hurricanes and hailstorms). In the U.S., in particular, “recent tariffs also have the potential to significantly increase auto insurance rates, especially for newer cars with more expensive parts and advanced technology,” says David Seider, chief commercial officer at The Zebra. “A vehicle that is more expensive to produce, purchase and repair is also more expensive to insure.”
For some car owners, in fact, it may not be possible to shoulder the added expense. “The Zebra found that as of April this year, 33% of Americans are considering letting their policy lapse regardless of the legal and financial risks,” says Seider. And this could beget a vicious cycle, he adds, whereby the presence of more uninsured drivers on the road may cause insurance companies to increase rates even further to compensate for the added risks and losses brought on by those uninsured drivers.
There are, however, insurers that are customizing policies to meet their clients’ financial needs and decrease claims costs. The 2025 Deloitte report found that some European insurers allow auto vendors to reuse spare parts for repairs, which is both economically sound and environmentally friendly. Other insurers are offering usage-based insurance and telematics programs that allow them to monitor customer driving patterns to better personalize risk assessment and policy pricing, says Bre Armstrong, senior research director at Reach3 Insights, a research consultancy.
To help consumers find these innovative insurers, and to provide insurers with a tool to evaluate their peers, Forbes has ranked the World’s Best Insurance Companies 2025 in three categories: homeowners, auto and life.
This third edition of the rankings was created in partnership with market research firm Statista, which surveyed more than 45,000 people across 15 countries in early 2025. Respondents were required to have held at least one insurance policy for their home, car or life within the last three years. They were then asked a series of questions about how satisfied they were with their insurer and if they would recommend it to others. Participants were also asked to rate their insurer based on criteria including the advice insurance agents offered, customer service, price performance, transparency and claims service. Ultimately, the responses were analyzed and scored, and 304 insurance companies with the highest scores landed on one or more of our final lists—130 companies on the homeowners insurance list, 155 on the auto insurance list and 150 on the life insurance list.
To see our full list of the World’s Best Homeowners Insurance Companies, click here.
To see our full list of the World’s Best Life Insurance Companies, click here.
To see our full list of the World’s Best Auto Insurance Companies, scroll directly below.
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As with all Forbes lists, companies pay no fee to participate or be selected. To read more about how we make these lists, click here. For questions about this list, please email listdesk [at] forbes.com.
