Name: HonestPolicy Grade — Markel
Creator: HonestPolicy

Every figure on this page links to the public government record it was computed from (see Sources & provenance). The grade aggregates the complaint experience of all Markel underwriting companies identified in each source, listed below with their raw complaint and exposure counts.

Specialty group whose graded personal-lines exposure is dominated by Essentia Insurance Company, the dedicated underwriter of the Hagerty classic/collector-vehicle program (Markel-owned paper, Hagerty-serviced) — it is the largest auto writer by exposure count in the CA study and has ~100k TX auto policies. Markel American writes personal marine/home specialty. State National is Markel-owned but is a fronting carrier for unaffiliated programs and is excluded (see known_traps).

Automobile: A score 90.1/100 · composite relative index 0.11 · 7 signals

Signals

Signal	Year	Group complaints	Group exposure base	Market complaints	Market exposure base	Relative index	Weight
TX Automobile	2025	3	94,486	2,480	15,044,798	0.19^[tx]	0.3
TX Automobile	2024	1	101,092	1,594	14,898,976	0.09^[tx]	0.12
CA Automobile	2025	0	259,695	1,786	28,998,865	0.00^[ca_auto]	0.2
CA Automobile	2024	1	259,695	1,388	28,998,865	0.08^[ca_auto]	0.12
CA Automobile	2023	1	259,695	857	28,998,865	0.13^[ca_auto]	0.08
NY Automobile	2024	0	$49.0M	629	$18,428M	0.00^[ny]	0.12
NY Automobile	2023	1	$42.7M	445	$16,202M	0.85^[ny]	0.06

Relative index = (group share of complaints) ÷ (group share of exposure base); 1.00 = market average, lower is better. CA prior-year indices reuse the latest-year exposure mix (CDI publishes exposures for the most recent year only). CA market = the ~50 largest writers CDI studies.

Underwriting companies aggregated into this grade

Source · year(s)	Company	Complaints	Exposure base	Regulator's own ratio
TX · 2025	ESSENTIA INSURANCE COMPANY (NAIC 37915)	2	94,119	0.13 (TDI index)
TX · 2025	EVANSTON INSURANCE COMPANY (NAIC 35378) (tiny book — below the credibility floor on its own)	0	30	0.0 (TDI index)
TX · 2025	MARKEL AMERICAN INSURANCE COMPANY (NAIC 28932) (tiny book — below the credibility floor on its own)	0	45	0.0 (TDI index)
TX · 2025	MARKEL INSURANCE COMPANY (NAIC 38970) (tiny book — below the credibility floor on its own)	1	292	20.79 (TDI index)
TX · 2024	ESSENTIA INSURANCE COMPANY (NAIC 37915)	1	98,465	0.09 (TDI index)
TX · 2024	EVANSTON INSURANCE COMPANY (NAIC 35378) (tiny book — below the credibility floor on its own)	0	44	0.0 (TDI index)
TX · 2024	MARKEL AMERICAN INSURANCE COMPANY (NAIC 28932) (tiny book — below the credibility floor on its own)	0	2,293	0.0 (TDI index)
TX · 2024	MARKEL INSURANCE COMPANY (NAIC 38970) (tiny book — below the credibility floor on its own)	0	290	0.0 (TDI index)
CA · 2025/2024/2023	ESSENTIA INSURANCE COMPANY (CDI rank 1)	2 (3yr)	259,695	2025: 0.0, 2024: 0.4, 2023: 0.4 (per 100k)
NY · 2024	Essentia Insurance Company (NAIC 37915)	0 (upheld, of 4 total)	$49.0M (premiums)	0.0 (DFS ratio, rank 2)
NY · 2023	Essentia Insurance Company (NAIC 37915)	1 (upheld, of 8 total)	$42.7M (premiums)	0.023410206 (DFS ratio, rank 67)

Homeowners: A score 79.2/100 · composite relative index 0.26 · 4 signals

Signals

Signal	Year	Group complaints	Group exposure base	Market complaints	Market exposure base	Relative index	Weight
TX Homeowners	2025	1	11,725	1,153	9,068,518	0.67^[tx]	0.3
TX Homeowners	2024	0	6,482	733	9,050,753	0.00^[tx] (below credibility floor)	0.12
CA Homeowners	2025	1	69,860	501	11,946,301	0.34^[ca_home]	0.2
CA Homeowners	2024	0	69,860	1,265	11,946,301	0.00^[ca_home]	0.12
CA Homeowners	2023	0	69,860	679	11,946,301	0.00^[ca_home]	0.08

Underwriting companies aggregated into this grade

Source · year(s)	Company	Complaints	Exposure base	Regulator's own ratio
TX · 2025	EVANSTON INSURANCE COMPANY (NAIC 35378)	1	11,725	0.67 (TDI index)
TX · 2024	EVANSTON INSURANCE COMPANY (NAIC 35378) (tiny book — below the credibility floor on its own)	0	6,482	0.0 (TDI index)
CA · 2025/2024/2023	MARKEL AMERICAN INSURANCE COMPANY (CDI rank 11)	1 (3yr)	69,860	2025: 1.4, 2024: 0.0, 2023: 0.0 (per 100k)

Flagged, not graded

Entities whose group attribution is uncertain are disclosed and excluded from the calculation:

STATE NATIONAL INSURANCE COMPANY, INC. (TX) — Markel-owned fronting carrier issuing paper for unaffiliated MGA programs; complaint experience is not attributable to Markel's own products. EXCLUDED from grade.
STATE NATIONAL INSURANCE COMPANY, INC. (CA) — Markel-owned fronting carrier issuing paper for unaffiliated MGA programs (e.g. its CA auto book fronts a large rideshare/program business); EXCLUDED from grade.
State National Insurance Company, Inc. (NY) — Markel-owned fronting carrier issuing paper for unaffiliated MGA programs; EXCLUDED from grade.

HonestPolicy Grades are calculated independently and without the endorsement of the NAIC, the Texas Department of Insurance, the California Department of Insurance, or the New York State Department of Financial Services. Underlying complaint statistics are public records of the named state agencies.

A HonestPolicy Grade is an editorial opinion about relative complaint experience, derived arithmetically from the public records cited on this page. It is not a recommendation to buy or avoid any insurance product. See methodology (v0.2.1) for the exact formula.

Sources & provenance

[tx] Texas Department of Insurance — Complaint indexes and policy counts for insurance companies — Texas Department of Insurance.
https://data.texas.gov/dataset/Complaint-indexes-and-policy-counts-for-insurance-/pa9u-9s9w
Retrieved 2026-07-10T10:07:49+00:00. Published on the Texas Open Data Portal for public reuse. Complaint index values are calculated by TDI.

[ca_auto] California Department of Insurance — 2026 Consumer Complaint Study (Automobile composite) — California Department of Insurance.
https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/120-company/03-concmplt/upload/2026-Consumer-Complaint-Study-Auto.pdf
Retrieved 2026-07-10T10:07:51+00:00. Public record of the California Department of Insurance. Ratios are justified complaints per 100,000 earned exposures as calculated by CDI.

[ca_home] California Department of Insurance — 2026 Consumer Complaint Study (Homeowners composite) — California Department of Insurance.
https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/120-company/03-concmplt/upload/2026-Consumer-Complaint-Study-Home.pdf
Retrieved 2026-07-10T10:07:51+00:00. Public record of the California Department of Insurance. Ratios are justified complaints per 100,000 earned exposures as calculated by CDI.

[ny] New York State Department of Financial Services — Automobile Insurance Company Complaint Rankings: Beginning 2009 — New York State Department of Financial Services.
https://data.ny.gov/Government-Finance/Automobile-Insurance-Company-Complaint-Rankings-Be/h2wd-9xfe
Retrieved 2026-07-10T10:07:51+00:00. Published on Open Data NY for public reuse. Per DFS: insurers are ranked by upheld consumer complaints (complaints where DFS agreed the insurer made an inappropriate decision) as a share of automobile premiums written in New York State; the ratio column is upheld complaints per $1 million of premium as calculated by DFS.

Full machine-readable provenance for every figure: data/grades.json (methodology v0.2.1, generated 2026-07-10T10:22:02+00:00).