This page used to compare two SR-22 insurers. It no longer can, because they are not two insurers.
Read the small print at the bottom of The General's own SR-22 page and it says:
"The General® brand property and casualty coverages are underwritten by a member of the Sentry Insurance Group, Stevens Point, WI."
Read the equivalent page on Dairyland's site — its list of underwriting companies — and it says:
"Dairyland® brand property and casualty coverages are underwritten by one of these companies which are members of the Sentry Insurance Group, Stevens Point, WI."
Same group, same head office, same sentence. Both disclosures were read on 2 September 2026. If you came here to play one company off against the other, that is the first thing worth knowing, and almost no comparison page says it.
How they ended up in the same group, and when
Sentry did not always own both. Sentry's own announcement sets out the purchase of The General from American Family Insurance:
"The transaction is expected to close by year-end 2024, pending regulatory approvals."
The price it gives is "approximately $1.1 billion in cash consideration", with the total transaction value at $1.7 billion once assumed liabilities and required capital are counted. Dairyland was already a Sentry brand.
That timing matters for anything you read about these two. A comparison written before 2025 was comparing two competitors. A comparison written after it, and still framed as a contest, has not checked. This page is dated for exactly that reason, and if the ownership changes again the date is how you will know this one has gone stale too.
The same announcement is also the source for the distinction that does survive: The General is described as direct-to-consumer, while Dairyland reaches customers through an independent agent network.
In Texas they can be the same company on the paperwork
Group ownership is one thing; the name on your policy is another, and in Texas they converge.
The General's own page carries a state-specific disclosure. In Texas, it says, coverages are underwritten by "Dairyland County Mutual Insurance Company of Texas, Austin, TX, or Old American County Mutual Fire Insurance Company."
Now look at Dairyland's list of underwriting companies. The second entry on it is Dairyland County Mutual Insurance Company of Texas.
So a Texas driver comparing "The General" against "Dairyland" may be comparing two brands whose policies are issued by the same insurance company. The brands are real, the pricing and service may genuinely differ, and the agent you speak to will differ — but the carrier standing behind the filing can be one and the same. Nothing on either brand's marketing pages tells you that; it is only visible by reading both disclosures side by side. Texas has its own peculiarities around what the state actually asks for, which the Texas guide covers.
What the disclosures actually let you compare
Strip out everything that turns out to be shared and this is what is left, all of it quoted from what the companies publish about themselves.
| What you might want to compare |
The General |
Dairyland |
Where it comes from |
| Underwriting group |
Sentry Insurance Group, Stevens Point, WI |
Sentry Insurance Group, Stevens Point, WI |
Both brands' own disclosures, read 2026-09-02 |
| How you buy |
Direct to consumer |
Independent agent network |
Sentry's acquisition announcement |
| Named underwriter in Texas |
Dairyland County Mutual Insurance Company of Texas, or Old American County Mutual Fire Insurance Company |
Dairyland County Mutual Insurance Company of Texas is on its published list |
Both brands' own disclosures |
| Filing fee |
"a filing fee or premium surcharge may be applied"; amount not published |
Not published as a figure |
thegeneral.com, read 2026-09-02 |
| Out-of-state filing |
"in most states The General can only file an SR-22 in the state where your auto insurance policy has been issued" |
Not stated in the same terms |
thegeneral.com, read 2026-09-02 |
| Speed after purchase |
"In just minutes, you'll have your SR-22 form available" |
Not stated in the same terms |
thegeneral.com, read 2026-09-02 |
Three things fall out of that table which neither company says.
Neither publishes a filing fee. The General's wording is conditional twice over — a fee "or" a surcharge, and it "may" be applied. A page that tells you the filing costs a specific amount at either brand is not reading the brand's own page. Ask for it as a separate line on the quote, in writing.
The out-of-state limitation is the only hard operational constraint either one publishes, and it is the one most likely to affect a real decision. If you are filing in a state other than the one your policy was issued in — after a move, or because a second state has an open case — that sentence is the thing to raise before you buy. It is also why moving to another state with an SR-22 is a harder problem than it looks.
Speed is claimed by one and not addressed by the other, which is not evidence that one is faster. It is evidence that one chose to publish a claim. An absence of a claim is not a measurement, and this page will not turn it into one.
What this page will not tell you, and why
No premium figures. Neither company publishes a rate for an individual driving record, and an average built from other people's records is not an estimate of yours. That is a house rule on this site, not a limitation of this comparison.
No star rating. A rating without a sample size is not a measurement, and neither brand publishes one attached to a sample.
No recommendation of one over the other. With a shared underwriting group and no published fee on either side, there is no fact on this page that would support one.
The regulator has the numbers neither brand publishes
If you want something quantitative about either company, the place to get it is your state's insurance department rather than a review site. The Texas Department of Insurance publishes complaint data as a dataset that, in its own description, "includes counts for confirmed complaints and policies in force by company name and line of coverage."
The counts-per-policies framing is the point. A raw complaint total tells you which company is bigger; a complaint count set against policies in force is the only version of that number that compares two carriers fairly. Most states' insurance departments publish something equivalent.
TDI's shopping guide puts the two checks a driver should actually run in plain terms: "Look at a company's complaint record" and "Make sure the company is licensed."
That second one is worth taking literally here. Because both brands are fronted by several underwriting companies, the entity you look up is the one named on your quote, not the brand on the advertisement. Looking up "The General" in a state database and looking up "Dairyland County Mutual Insurance Company of Texas" are different searches, and only the second one tells you about the company that would owe you money.
What to do instead of choosing between them
Since the group is shared and neither publishes a fee, the useful comparison is not brand against brand.
- Get a quote from each and read the underwriter's name on it. That name, not the brand, is what you check with your state's insurance department.
- Ask for the premium and any filing charge as two separate numbers, and ask whether the charge repeats at renewal. Neither brand publishes this, so the quote is the only place it exists.
- If you need the filing in a different state from your policy, raise it before you buy. The General publishes a limitation here; assume the same question applies to any carrier until answered in writing.
- Quote at least one carrier outside the Sentry group as well. Two quotes from the same underwriting group are one data point wearing two coats.
- Check the certificate matches what your state wants. Some states reject wording that others accept, and the requirement is the state's, not the insurer's. If you have not read what an SR-22 actually is, that is where the mechanics are. If you do not own a car, ask specifically about a non-owner SR-22, which is a different product from a policy with the filing bolted on.
What I could not verify
Whether the overlap holds in all fifty states. It is not confined to Texas — that was this page's first reading and it was wrong. The General's own legal disclosures page names an underwriter in California too, and the name is Viking Insurance Company of Wisconsin, which also appears on Dairyland's published list. So the convergence recurs in the largest state in the country as well as in Texas. What is still unverified is the other forty-eight: those two are the states where The General publishes the name, and no claim is made about the rest.
Which entity you get in Texas. The Texas disclosure names two alternatives, and the second one — Old American County Mutual Fire Insurance Company — is described on The General's own page as "a nonaffiliated entity". So a Texas buyer may end up with a policy issued either by a company inside the group or by one the brand itself says is outside it. Which of the two you are given is not something either page settles in advance; the name on your own quote is.
Any filing fee figure for either brand. Neither publishes one. Figures circulate; none of them is traceable to either company's own page, so none appears here.
Complaint indexes for either company. The Texas Department of Insurance publishes the dataset and describes what it contains, but the lookup itself runs as a database query rather than a fixed page that can be cited with a date. The method is given above so you can run it for the company named on your own quote; no number is reproduced here that I did not read.
Whether both brands will continue to operate separately. Sentry's announcement describes independent operation during integration. That is a statement of intent made before the deal closed, not a commitment about 2026, and this page does not treat it as one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are The General and Dairyland the same company?
They are separate brands underwritten by the same group. Both publish the same sentence about it: The General says its coverages are "underwritten by a member of the Sentry Insurance Group, Stevens Point, WI", and Dairyland says its coverages are "underwritten by one of these companies which are members of the Sentry Insurance Group, Stevens Point, WI." In Texas the overlap goes further, because The General names Dairyland County Mutual Insurance Company of Texas as one of its two Texas underwriters, and that company also appears on Dairyland's own published list.
When did that happen?
Sentry bought The General from American Family Insurance in a deal it valued at $1.7 billion in total, including approximately $1.1 billion in cash, and its announcement said the transaction was expected to close by year-end 2024. Dairyland was already a Sentry brand. Any comparison of these two written before 2025 was describing a market that has since changed.
So which one is cheaper for an SR-22?
This page does not answer that, and neither does either company. No insurer publishes a rate for an individual driving record, so the only price that exists for you is the one on your own quote. What the disclosures do tell you is that a quote from each is not two independent quotes from a risk-pricing point of view — so if you are shopping, put at least one carrier from outside the group on your list.
Does either of them charge a filing fee?
Neither publishes an amount. The General's own page says only that "a filing fee or premium surcharge may be applied when filing SR-22 form", and adds that it "includes the SR-22 insurance fee with your insurance quote" — which means the number exists on your quote and nowhere else. Ask for it as a separate line, and ask whether it recurs at renewal.
Can either file an SR-22 for a different state than my policy?
The General publishes a limitation: "in most states The General can only file an SR-22 in the state where your auto insurance policy has been issued." Dairyland does not state the same thing in the same terms, which is not the same as saying it has no such limit. If your case spans two states, get the answer in writing before buying rather than after.
