The state of New York through its Department of Financial Services (DFS) has been rating the performance of insurance companies as they attend to their consumers’ insurance claims through an online report card.

The said online reporting system launched by the DFS shows statistics from 24 leading homeowners and auto insurance companies servicing the state. In the said report cards, insurance consumers will see the insurer’s data on the total number of claims they attend to from the damages brought by superstorm Sandy. Consumers will also be able to see the number of claims closed, and the claims without payment. In addition to those, the average number of days as a particular insurer attends to a claim which includes the inspection, estimate and the claim’s payout. The public can also see from the report card the number of complaints being faced by a particular insurer with regards to the claims process post-Sandy.

Aside from the homeowners and auto insurance policies, the said data also included the claims data from business policies such as business interruption insurance.

Though the online report card system only showed data from 24 insurers, the DFS said that it already covers the vast majority of the insurance market in New York. However, other insurance companies will be added on the list later.

The said reporting system will be updated frequently so as to show updated data. Based on the available data on Nov. 30, Allstate tops the list with the highest number of insurance claims being attended to, with 72,504 claims. Second to the list is the State Farm of Illinois which only has 36,277 claims.

Basically, there are four steps on how insurance companies handle a claim. First is that a policyholder will file a claim with his or her insurer, then the latter will send an adjuster to inspect damage and to see if such damages are covered by the insurance policy. After the adjuster does it work, the insurer will then send an estimate to the policyholder of what it is going to pay. If the policyholder agrees with the amount that his or her insurer will pay, the claims payout will then take place.

The New York State Insurers’ Report Cards are available through the www.nyinsure.ny.gov/nys-insurer-report-cards.html.