By Mark E. Ruquet, PropertyCasualty360.com
June 26, 2012 • Reprints
NU Online News Service, June 26, 12:54 p.m. EDT
Overall satisfaction among auto-insurance consumers reached an all-time high in 2012, and new technology is driving a change in customers’ priorities when it comes to shopping for coverage, according to J.D. Power and Associates.
J.D. Power has released its 2012 U.S. Auto Insurance Study, which finds that overall satisfaction with insurance companies increased 14 points over last year, rising to 804 on a 1,000-point scale. This is the highest satisfaction level for insurers since the study was launched in 2000, the marketing-information firm headquartered in Westlake Village, Calif., says.
Satisfaction increased in nearly all factors JD Power measured, with significant improvement in policy offerings and interaction.
Satisfaction with price remained virtually unchanged from last year, the report notes.
“Although satisfaction with price remains consistent from 2011, auto-insurance companies have made great strides in all other areas,” says Jeremy Bowler, senior director of the insurance practice at J.D. Power, in a statement.
Unlike in the past, there is no overall company winner in this year’s report. Instead, J.D. Power broke the results down into seven different regions.
The overall highest satisfaction rating was for Amica Mutual in the Northeast Region with a score of 867. State Farm led the way in the West Region with a score of 837, and took second or third place in five of the remaining six regions.
In all regions, USAA outpaced all the insurers in satisfaction, but was not included in the rankings because it provides insurance only to U.S. military personnel.
Mark Garrett, research director for J.D. Power, says one of the survey’s more surprising findings is the shift over the years in what drives customer satisfaction. In 2007, interaction with an agent was the dominant driver of satisfaction for auto-insurance buyers, but in 2012 it was policy offerings.
In fact, interaction between policyholder and producer or insurer slipped to the fourth-most important driver of customer satisfaction, as auto-insurance consumers today tend to focus more on policy offerings, price, billing and payment, and claims service, the report says.
Garrett notes that consumers are increasingly interested in discounts and bundling of insurance programs with other coverages.
“We look at the six-year trend and we see that the role of the agent is significantly different,” says Garrett. “It’s not all about the agent anymore.”
The shift toward more usage of technology and the growing robustness of websites to provide services is causing less human interaction, making the impact of having a person involved in the transaction less important, says Garrett.
When it comes to utilizing service channels, Generation Y buyers are more inclined to turn to websites (39 percent said they use this channel), but the Baby Boomer generation is increasingly embracing the use of websites as well. Thirty-two percent of Baby Boomers said they used this channel, up from 9 percent from 2007.
The use of local agents, meanwhile, has deteriorated over the years, with 35 percent of Gen Y users and 48 percent of Boomers saying they use this channel, down 14 percent from 2007 for Gen Y policyholders and down 3 percent for Boomers.
The report notes that all age groups are not writing off the use of agents. In fact, there is a strong indication that agents who embrace technology produce a higher satisfaction experience for customers, notes Garrett.
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