The auto insurance market presents huge potential in terms of revenues and customer base. This makes it important for insurance companies to focus on providing quality service to increase customer satisfaction and overall experience.
In the auto insurance industry, customer satisfaction has an impact on the policyholders’ intent to renew their policies from the same insurer. Highly satisfied policyholders are at least 1.5 times as likely to renew their policies with the same provider. Similarly, when buying a policy for a new vehicle, highly satisfied customers are nearly twice as likely to go back to the same insurer.
J. D. Power Asia Pacific 2011 conducted a study to measure the customer satisfaction levels among all auto insurance companies in India. This was based on six parameters viz. interaction, claims, renewal/purchase process, policy/product offerings, billing/payment process, and premium for coverage offered.
New India Assurance has ranked the highest in customer satisfaction with Auto Insurance Providers according to the report released yesterday. New India has performed particularly well in the renewal/purchase process. Oriental Insurance is next in line and has performed well in the payment and billing process as well as the renewal/purchase process. Both New India Assurance and Oriental Insurance are public-sector insurers.
ICICI Lombard, which is a private general insurer, has ranked 3rd after Oriental Insurance.
The satisfaction levels with public sector insurers, as a whole, remain higher than with private insurance companies. Having said that, the satisfaction levels with public insurers have declined by 17 points from that in 2010.
The study on Overall Customer Satisfaction with Auto Insurance Providers was conducted across 20 cities in India. The results are based on responses from 5,284 auto insurance customers who renewed or purchased an auto insurance policy between January 2010 and April 2011 with 2.5 to 3.5 years of the vehicle ownership experience.
Customer satisfaction levels were measured for 15 auto insurance providers including 4 PSUs – New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance, National Insurance, and United India Insurance; and 11 private insurance companies.
