What Your Choice of Car Insurance Company Says About You

Your buying habits say a lot about you.

For example, on MSN Living, Rich Maloof makes the case that your car can reveal whether you're a Democrat or Republican: Drive a convertible or a large SUV? You're probably Republican. Honda Civic Hybrid? You are soooo Democrat.

And a new analysis by Insure.com reveals how consumers can often find like-minded folks at the same auto insurance company. Insure.com's study of more than 4,500 consumers includes satisfaction rankings for 20 large auto insurers. While we were at it, we also asked respondents about their personal preferences and habits.

Twitter

Customers of Country Financial and MetLife are by far the most plugged-in and savvy about social media when compared to customers of other large auto insurers, according to Insure.com's customer satisfaction ratings for best insurance companies.

More than one-quarter of Country Financial customers -- 25.9% -- say they regularly use Twitter. That leads the pack, followed by MetLife customers at 16.7%.

You won't find many Twitter users among customers of Nationwide (2%), 21st Century (2.1%) or The Hartford (2.4%).

Facebook

Want to make friends with other customers who share your auto insurer? The largest contingents of Facebook users are found at Country Financial (76.7%), MetLife (69.7%) and Esurance (54.2%).

The Hartford (15.5%), State Farm (20%) and Allstate (21.8%) have the lowest levels of Facebook use among policyholders.

LinkedIn

Once again, MetLife (33.3%) and Country Financial (22.4%) customers are top users, with Allstate (5%), AAA (5.5%) and State Farm (6.2%) drivers showing little interest in networking with colleagues and friends via LinkedIn.

Groupon

Who doesn't love a bargain on salon services and cupcakes? If you judge by percentages of Groupon users, customers of The Hartford (2.4%) and State Farm (6%) have little interest.

Customers of MetLife (37.9%) and Country Financial (25.9) are seeking out deals online.

Smartphones

Are you a smartphone user? You're more likely to be a customer of MetLife or Country Financial than other the insurers in our survey.

MetLife and Country Financial are the only insurers in our survey that can claim more than half of their customers regularly use smartphones (57.6% and 56%, respectively).

State Farm and Allstate customers are least likely to use a smartphone (18.2% and 18.7%, respectively).

We will rock you

Auto-Owners customers (24.5%) are most likely to be rockin' out in their cars. They are most likely to pick rock 'n' roll as their favorite music (45.7%) when the other choices are classical, country, indie, opera, pop, R&B/rap and reggae.

The Hartford's customers are the most likely to rank classical as their favorite music (22.2%).

Drivers insured by AAA have the highest percentage of opera listeners when compared to other insurance consumers, albeit a small 4.4%.

What's on?

Customers of GMAC Insurance are also the most likely of any group to be watching PBS (12.5%) when given a choice among Diane Sawyer (ABC), Scott Pelley (CBS), Jon Stewart (Comedy Central), Bill O'Reilly (Fox), Brian Williams (NBC), Chris Matthews (MSNBC) and PBS NewsHour.

If you're looking for fans of Jon Stewart, you'll probably want to hang out with customers of USAA, who say Stewart is their news person of choice (33.3%). Other big Stewart fans include Mercury General customers (24.1%) and Progressive customers (20.6%).

Maybe you like Bill O'Reilly.  So do customers of The Hartford (22.2%) and Country Financial (20%).

AAA drivers are most likely to say they don't watch news (44.4%).

You have to be hungry to eat a doughnut?

Customers of The Hartford are old-fashioned -- when it comes to doughnuts: Drivers insured by The Hartford (37%) and 21st Century (26.5%) are the most likely to rank old-fashioned doughnuts as their favorite, over Boston cream, chocolate glazed with sprinkles, glazed and jelly-filled.

Interestingly, not one customer of Country Financial in our survey said they like old-fashioned doughnuts best. (Instead, they tend to choose glazed and Boston cream.)

Here's how all these customers rank their insurance companies on customer satisfaction.

The original article can be found at Insure.com:What your choice of car insurance company says about you