In other words if you go with a "cheaper" car insurance, will you be sorry if you have an accident?
In this competitive insurance market, you typically get what you pay for. Claims handling will be quicker and easier for you if you have a well established company. Most companies will pay what the policy owes. The difference lies in the amount of time your claim takes, the extent of your involvement (work you have to do), the efficiency of the company handling the claim and the staffing that the company has in place for accidents, storms, etc. Some companies will pay claims that they legally don’t owe in order to win over more business. State Farm and Allstate paid claims which they did not legally owe (off premise power outage, prevention of using home by a civil authority DUE to damage in the area) to insureds during last years hurricanes. When a catastrophic event occurs, these companies use these quick claim payments outside the policy, as a marketing tool for more business.
Also, if you have cut rate insurance, there is a reason. The service adjuster will typically have less education, lower salary’s, less innovative technology, and more claims to adjuster ratio then others. They are typically overworked and you should not expect a call back the same day you leave the adjuster a message. They have to make the cost of somewhere. Adjuster’s will have a caseload of 100 to 600 claims. Anything over 200 is more than one adjuster can handle. I am an adjuster that works on contract basis, so I have worked at many insurance companies over my career and have seen these trends.