The need for positive touchpoints
There are many dimensions to the insurance industry’s brand weakness, which we will explore in this report, but the underlying problem
but it is not possible to test drive an auto insurance policy. The industry’s challenge can be clearly seen in figures that the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates the country’s financial markets, began to collect from the industry in 2021. (No comparable data is available in the US insurance market). The figures shown below are for 2022 and they illustrate the industry’s branding challenge starkly. In 2022, just over a tenth of UK auto insurance policies were claimed against, and more than 5% of these claims elicited complaints by policyholders. (The latter can reasonably be expected to have been brand negative experiences). For homeowners’ insurers, the figures are even worse: only 5.47% of policies were subject to claims and nearly 9% of these claims elicited complaints.
is clear. Insurers interact relatively rarely with their customers and, when they do, the experience is not always positive. Brands rely on positive touchpoints – the more the better – to grow. Insurers generally offer very few. Of course, savvy marketers know how to create positive touchpoints, through advertising and social media outreach, that are independent of the experience of the goods or services that they are selling. But in most cases the product itself will be central to the brand experience, and the goal of marketing is to encourage the consumer to try out the product. Test driving a car can seal the deal,
Claims are Infrequent and the customer experience is not always positive
Claims Frequency
Claims acceptance rate
Average claims payout
Claim complaints as a% of claims
Product Category
Home - (buildings and contents combined)(All)
5.47%
76.32%
£3,733.28
8.72%
Auto (All)
10.62% 99.06%
£3,283.14
5.37% 3.54% 4.34%
Travel - single trip (Stand-alone) Travel - annual worldwide (All) Extended warranty - electrical goods (Stand-alone)
7.16%
73.14% £1,150.61
10.88% 81.56%
£1,827.55
13.75% 99.19%
£150.32
4.90%
Dental insurance (All)
6.63%
94.72%
£121.79
1.76%
Gadget (including mobile phone) (Stand-alone) Gadget (including mobile phone) (Add-on)
10.59% 92.28%
£343.59
7.75%
12.84% 97.68%
£401.64
5.35%
Pet - covered for life (All)
46.68% 95.34%
£551.62
0.95%
Source: UK Financial Conduct Authority, General Insurance Value Measures Data, 2022
The star performer by these admittedly dismal standards was pet insurance, where claims frequency was almost 50% and the proportion of claims that generated complaints was less than 1%.
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