Half of complaints against insurers handled 'poorly' - consumers

Over half of consumers who complained to their insurer last year were unsatisfied with the way their case was handled, according to the ABI's latest Customer Impact Survey Report.

The results reveal 3% of customers have made a complaint to their provider in the past 12 months and over half (55%) felt their complaint had been handled "poorly". Only 4% of customers felt their complaint had been handled excellently.

As with last year's results, a consistent 86% of customers "strongly agreed" or "agreed" their insurer was "easy to do business with", while just over three quarters (76%) felt their provider "really cares about its customers" and 86% believe their provider "treats customer fairly".

Views of companies' payment process saw the biggest improvement from last year; with 53% of customers rating their provider's payment process overall as "excellent" or "very good".

The annual survey measures the experiences of over 20,000 customers on a variety of indicators, combined into three different Customer Commitments.

On the first commitment - 'developing and promoting products that meet the needs of customers', 33% rated this as "excellent" or "very good", while "fair" and "poor" remained constant at 23%.

Over half (59%) of customers who made a recent purchase rated commitment 2 - 'providing customers with clear information and good service when they buy products'- as "excellent" or "very good", whilst the "fair" and "poor" ratings remained at 9%.

The "excellent" and "very good" ratings increased by 1% this year to 42% for commitment 3 - 'maintaining appropriate and effective relationships with customers once they have brought a product', while the "fair" and "poor" ratings remained at 19%.

Maggie Craig, the ABI's director of life and savings, comments: "Even in these times of economic uncertainty, customers are generally happy with the levels of service they receive from the industry," she says.

"Where the survey has pointed to areas where companies need to improve, they have made practical changes to put things right. Members of the Scheme will continue this work throughout 2009."

Have Your Say

Insurers appear to have satisfied customers this year according to the ABI's latest report although there is still work to be done on complaints handling. Do you agree? What is your view of insurers' customer service?

Contact: Charlotte Banks

charlotte.banks@incisivemedia.com

Tel: 0207 484 9943