Public insurance companies outperform private companies in customer satisfaction with auto insurance providers in India, according to the J.D. Power Asia Pacific 2010 India Auto Insurance Customer Satisfaction Index StudySM (AIS).
The study, now in its second year, examines auto insurance policyholder experiences with their primary insurers. Customer satisfaction is measured across six factors: interaction; claims; product/policy offerings; renewal/purchase process; billing and payment process; and premium/price for coverage offered. National Insurance ranks highest with a score of 831 on a 1,000-point scale, performing particularly well in all six factors.
Two public insurers—United India and New India Assurance—follow in the rankings, achieving scores of 823 and 806, respectively. Overall customer satisfaction with auto insurance providers averages 804 in 2010, and improves by 43 points from 2009.
“While satisfaction improves substantially overall, the rate of improvement for public insurers is higher than that of private insurers due to a substantial increase in satisfaction levels across factors, compared with 2009, and more so on the customer interaction with their insurer,” said Mohit Arora, executive director at J.D. Power Asia Pacific, Singapore. “Although public insurers outperform private insurance companies in all factors, private insurers have demonstrated more substantial improvement in the claims experience in 2010,than have public insurance companies.”
The industry-wide gains from 2010 are largely driven by notable improvement in various channels within the interaction factor, including independent agents and brokers; insurer branch offices and purchase dealers.
“With the recent opening of the market in 2009, auto insurance companies are making greater efforts to improve upon the customer experience in order to differentiate themselves from the competition,” said Arora.
“While insurance sales in India are still largely completed through the agent and broker channel, a shift in channel mix seems to be occurring due to provider network expansion and several OEM-insurer tie-ups.” The study also finds that consistent performance of key service practices has a notable positive effect on a customer’s propensity to consider the insurance provider for a renewal or a new purchase of an auto insurance policy, and that highly satisfied policyholders are also more likely to renew their policy with the same provider.
As a result, more than seven in 10 customers who are highly satisfied with their insurance provider say that they “definitely will” renew the auto insurance policy with the same provider. In comparison, only 43 percent of less-satisfied customers say the same.
The 2010 India Auto Insurance Customer Satisfaction Index Study is based on evaluations from 5,098 auto insurance customers who renewed or purchased an auto insurance policy between January 2009 and April 2010 and were between 2.5 and 3.5 years of vehicle ownership. The study includes 12 auto insurance companies (including eight private and four public providers) and was fielded from January 2010 to April 2010 in 20 cities across India.
