Root insurance review 2026: a Nerd Score of 60

Almost every review of Root is written out of Root’s marketing, because for most small carriers there is nothing else to write one out of. Root is the exception. Root, Inc. trades on the Nasdaq as ROOT, which means its premium per policy, its policy count, its combined ratio and the names of its underwriting subsidiaries are all in documents it can be sued for getting wrong. Add the NAIC’s complaint file and the two app stores, and a Root review can be built almost entirely out of primary sources.

This one is. Every number below comes from a Form 10-K, a Form 10-Q, the NAIC’s Consumer Information Source, J.D. Power’s published study release, or Root’s own coverage page.

How we scored Root

• Price (30%) — 6.5. Root discloses its own average premium, which almost no private carrier does. Gross premiums written per policy were $1,479 at 30 June 2026, down from a $1,584 peak in FY2024 — $1,531 in FY2025 and $1,423 in FY2023. The only same-year, like-for-like benchmark our sourcing rules allow is 2023, when the NAIC’s Auto Insurance Database Report put the countrywide combined average premium at $1,438 for liability plus collision plus comprehensive. Root’s $1,423 was 1.0% below it. That is parity. Root’s premium has since fallen while the market’s has risen, so the current gap is probably wider in Root’s favour — but we do not score on probably, and a carrier whose entire pitch is “you could save hundreds” has not demonstrated a structural discount in its own book.
• Claims (35%) — 5.0. In the NAIC’s 2025 data, Root Insurance Company (NAIC #10974) carries a private-passenger complaint index of 1.92 where 1.00 is the level expected for its size: 71 closed confirmed complaints, a 0.40% share of all complaints on a 0.21% share of premiums. The group’s second writer, Root Property & Casualty (NAIC #24503), is at 1.02 on 17 complaints — essentially at expectation, and the reason this pillar is 5.0 rather than lower. There is no J.D. Power verdict to weigh either way: Root is not among the brands ranked in the 2025 U.S. Auto Claims Satisfaction Study, which surveys “the largest insurance providers” and put the industry average at 700 out of 1,000. And Root’s 10-K claims no financial-strength rating for any of its three insurers.
• Coverage (20%) — 5.5. Root’s own coverage page is a competent list of the mandatory and the core: liability, collision, comprehensive, PIP, medical payments, UM/UIM bodily injury, UMPD in certain states, rental, and roadside. What is absent is the point — no gap coverage, no accident forgiveness, no new-car replacement, and no rideshare-driving endorsement. Roadside is included but thin: three incidents per vehicle per six-month term, capped at $100 per incident. Root’s live availability map shows 37 of 51 U.S. jurisdictions open.
• Digital (15%) — 7.8. The Root app rates 4.7 out of 5 from 73,252 ratings on the Apple App Store and 3.1 out of 5 from 38,077 ratings on Google Play, both checked on 2 September 2026. The pillar is the mean of the two, doubled onto our 0–10 scale. That 1.6-point split is the widest of any carrier we score — Clearcover’s two stores agree to within a tenth — and it matters more here than anywhere else, because Root has no branches and no agents. The app is the company.

That is a Nerd Score of 60 — computed from the weights above, never hand-set. For context, Clearcover, the other app-first auto carrier we score, sits at 61, and the national carriers run from 69 to 87.

The complaint index that reorders the pitch

The NAIC’s national complaint index is the cleanest number in consumer insurance, because it already adjusts for size. It divides a company’s share of all closed, confirmed complaints filed with state regulators by its share of national premium. A company that generates exactly as many complaints as its premium volume predicts scores 1.00. Twice as many scores 2.00.

For the 2025 data year, private passenger auto, Root’s two writers land in very different places:

This split is why the brief for this review insisted on pulling each underwriting entity separately. A reader who is quoted through Root Property & Casualty is buying from a company at the market norm. A reader quoted through Root Insurance Company — which writes roughly twice the premium and takes four times the complaints — is buying from one that generates nearly double the expected volume of regulator complaints. You do not get to choose which one writes your policy, and Root does not surface it in the quote flow.

The complaint codes point at settlement rather than sales. Of Root Insurance Company’s 71 private-passenger complaints in 2025, 25 were coded liability, 16 collision and 5 comprehensive, with single complaints for UM/UIM, rental reimbursement and single-interest cover. Those are claims-handling categories, not billing or underwriting ones.

What is missing is any independent satisfaction benchmark to weigh against it. J.D. Power’s 2025 study drew on 9,455 responses fielded from September 2024 through August 2025 and named Erie highest at 743, ahead of NJM at 731 and Liberty Mutual at 730, against a 700 average. Root is not in it. At roughly 484,000 policies, it is not one of “the largest insurance providers” the study covers — so on the single most-cited measure of claims quality in this industry, Root has no score at all, good or bad.

What the SEC filings say that the marketing does not

Root is a genuinely different company than it was three years ago, and the filings are unambiguous about it.

A net combined ratio of 133.2% means Root was paying out $1.33 for every dollar of premium it kept. At 92.1% in Q2 2026 it keeps about eight cents. That is a real turnaround, and it is the strongest argument for Root’s durability as a company.

It is also, deliberately, not part of the Nerd Score. A combined ratio tells you whether a carrier will still exist in ten years. It tells you nothing about whether your claim gets paid fairly next March. The Nerd Score rates a policy for a buyer, not a stock for an investor — so gross written premium, policies in force and combined ratio inform this section and stay out of the four pillars.

Two things in the filings do bear on buyers. Root’s three regulated insurers — Root Insurance Company and Root Property & Casualty Insurance Company, both Ohio-domiciled, plus Root Florida Insurance Company, incorporated in early 2025 for Florida only — all held risk-based capital above company action levels at 31 December 2025. And the 10-K states Root is “licensed in 50 states and the District of Columbia and operate in 36 of those states”, against the 37 its live map showed in September 2026. The licences are in place; the launches are the slow part.

The coverage menu, and what is not on it

Root’s coverage page reads well until you notice the omissions. Everything genuinely offered:

• Liability — bodily injury and property damage.
• Collision and comprehensive, both required by most lienholders.
• Rental — and this is a real differentiator. Root lets you take rideshare or taxi reimbursement instead of a rental car while yours is being repaired.
• Roadside assistance — included, but capped at three incidents per vehicle per six-month term and $100 per incident. A single tow can exceed that.
• UM/UIM bodily injury, personal injury protection and medical payments, per state requirement.
• Uninsured motorist property damage — “in certain states” only, by Root’s own wording.

Not on the list, and this is what the coverage pillar exists to catch:

• No gap coverage. If you financed a new car and total it, Root pays fair market value and you owe the lender the difference.
• No accident forgiveness. Your first at-fault claim can move your renewal rate.
• No new-car replacement.
• No rideshare or delivery endorsement. Root’s rideshare reimbursement is for when your car is in the shop; it is not cover for driving for Uber, Lyft or a delivery platform.

For a telematics carrier that selects hard for safe drivers, the absence of accident forgiveness is the sharpest of these. The customers Root wants are precisely the ones who would use it once in a decade.

Who Root actually suits

Root makes sense for a driver who scores well on the test drive, is comfortable with an insurer that exists only as an app, owns the car outright or has enough equity that gap is moot, and does not drive for a platform. For that person the test drive can beat a demographically-priced quote by a wide margin, and the app experience — on iOS at least — is among the better ones in the category.

It makes much less sense if you financed a new car, if you drive commercially, if you are on Android and read app reviews before you buy, or if what you want from an insurer is a claims record you can look up and feel good about. On that last one, the record is public and it is not good: nearly twice the expected complaints at the underwriter that writes most of Root’s book.

Get a Root quote, by all means — the test drive costs you nothing but a few weeks of location data. Then hold it against our ranking of the best car insurance of 2026, and read how telematics discounts really work before you let an app watch you drive.

Disclaimer: This review is for educational purposes only and does not constitute personalized insurance advice. Coverage terms, endorsements and availability vary by state and change without notice. Figures are current as of 2 September 2026. Always verify current details directly with Root or a licensed insurance professional.