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Press information Finnish Property Insurance Companies 2007 according to the EPSI Rating Customer Satisfaction Study
Private customers
These are some of the results from the latest EPSI Rating study concerning customers’ satisfaction with the property insurance companies in Finland. The interviews were done in October and November 2007. The same study has been done also in all other Nordic countries and in Estonia. In all EPSI Rating studies, the customer satisfaction index is the most central measurement. It can take values between 0 and 100 where 100 means that all customers are very satisfied. However, other measurements are included as well. These are known as important drivers and consist of company images, customer expectations, product and service quality, value for money. These drivers together with customer satisfaction result in customer loyalty. Property insurance companies were measured for the first time in Finland in 2005. This years´ results concerning private customers' satisfaction with their property insurance companies are presented below. The error margins are about +, - 2 index points.
The best satisfaction scores were given by private customers to group “Other companies” with an index of 77,4. Within the Other companies group, the customers of Lähivakuutus gave best scores and the customers of Fennia the worst scores. Concerning the big companies which were separately studied, Tapiola received the best satisfaction score from its customers (76,6). Very near became Nordea Vahinkovakuutus (TrygVesta) with an index of 75,9. Pohjola was the third and If the fourth with the indexes of 74,9 and 73,3. Nordea Vahinkovakuutus has created high customer expectations The reasons for the differences in private customers’ satisfaction among property insurance companies can be examined from the following graph.
Nordea Vahinkovakuutus and If seem to have the lowest corporate images. However, Nordea Vahinkovakuutus has succeeded to create the highest customer expectations among its customers. When comparing the profiles of Pohjola and If, they seem to have equal scores in Service Quality (ServQ), but in other aspects, Pohjola seems to have higher scores than If. Concerning Loyalty indexes, If seems to have much lower customer Loyalty index than other companies. Moreover, it seems to be the only company whose Loyalty index is lower than its Customer Satisfaction index (CSI). Loyalty index is calculated from three questions, the first concerning the respondents intention to continue customer relationship, the second word-of-mouth behavior, and the third recommendation behavior. All companies have improved their customer satisfaction, and If the most When comparing the satisfaction indexes to the last year, it may be noted that all companies have managed to increase their satisfaction indexes considerably. See the graph below.
If has improved its customer satisfaction by 5,4 index points, Pohjola by 4,6, Tapiola by 4,4 and Nordea Vahinkovakuutus and Other companies by 4,3 index points. Danish customers are the most satisfied In the diagram below, the private consumers in the respective country give the scores for their general insurance company. The average for the entire region (calculated as the GDP-weighted average of the respective country result) has increased significantly since last year. The Icelandic consumers still give the lowest average scores. Denmark and Finland are on top. The highest relative increases are reported for Finland.
Finish insurance companies are good in their claims handling, but not so good in customer complaint handling Concerning claims handling, Finnish private customers give generally good scores to their property insurance companies for their claims handling. The customers gave an average score of 8,4 (on a scale of 1-10) for Finnish property insurance companies for their claims handling. Last year, the score was 8,3. In their level of claims handling, the variance of scores within the individual companies is greater than between the companies. It seems that property insurance companies administer their claims handling procedures much better than their customers’ complaints’ handling. Concerning private customers’ complaint handling, the average score given by complaining customers was only 6,0. Last year, the same score was 6,6. Also here, the variance within the individual companies is greater than between the companies. Customers who use internet have the highest expectations Totally 10 % of all respondents say that they mainly use internet when contacting their insurance company. The share of the internet users is the highest in Nordea Vahinkovakuutus. The profile of internet users is different from the other customers. For example, their customer expectations are higher that the expectations of the other customers. Nearly half of the customers think they are special customers The respondents were also asked, if they think they are a kind of special customer in their insurance company (key customer, have a membership etc.). Totally 48 % of all answered “Yes”, 36 % that “No”, and 16 % that they do not know. In different companies, the share of those customers who felt they are “special” customers was the by far the highest in Nordea Vahinkovakuutus 94 % (last year 71 %). In Tapiola, the share of “special” customers was 62 % (last year 54 %), in Pohjola 49 % (last year 38 %), and in If 39 % (last year 30 %). The EPSI study The data for the research was gathered by telephone interviews. The respondents were asked to evaluate the property insurance company they primarily use. The respondents were selected by randomization procedures to participate to the research. The aim is to be able to interview 250 customers from each major property insurance companies. This research is part of European Customer Satisfaction Research, EPSI Rating. It is coordinated by the Swedish Institute of Quality and the Stockholm School of Economics. European quality organizations are also backing the research. In Sweden, the same methodology has been in use since the year 1984, and it already covers a major portion of the Swedish economy. In Finland as well, it is the intention to gradually expand the research to cover the Finnish economy. Earlier this autumn, the results from the Finnish banking and telecom industries have been released. Later this year, studies on "do-it-yourself" chains and electricity companies will be released. The research is coordinated in Finland by Dr. Juhani Kuokkanen. For additional information, please contact: Dr. Juhani Kuokkanen phone: +358 40 5093401, e-mail: juhani.kuokkanen@epsi-finland.org Professor Jan Eklöf phone: +46 7069 64185, e-mail: jan.eklof@epsi-rating.com
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