(Westlake Village, CA – Insurance News 360) – The JD Power 2018 U.S. Life Insurance Study showed that insurers, including those who offer multiple lines of insurance, have seen an increase in customer satisfaction, although the life insurance industry in total declined significantly.
Multi-line property and casualty-focused insurers, and retirement-focused institutions had an average higher rank for customer satisfaction than traditional life insurance companies.
“If life insurance companies want to see an increase in satisfaction, they must place the customer at the center of their growth strategy,” said Robert Lajdziak, Business Consultant for the North American Insurance Practice at J.D. Power. “Historically, life insurance companies focus most of their energy and planning around the point of sale and generally neglect following through on the customer experience post-sale.”
“Life insurance companies have started to focus on customer experience in the past three years,” said Lajdziak. “The P&C-focused and retirement-focused brands have the upper hand here because they have deeper customer relationships across multiple products and have made customer satisfaction a central component of their business strategy.”
Study Rankings
For the fifth year, State Farm ranked highest, followed by Northwestern Mutual and Nationwide.
The J.D. Power 2018 U.S. Life Insurance Study is a syndicated benchmarking study profiling the experiences of customers from the largest life insurance companies in the United States. The study is based on responses from 5,391 individual life insurance customers surveyed in June-July 2018.
To measure customer satisfaction, critical-to-customer experience factors are examined using an index model. The model identifies the dominant factors that impact customer satisfaction and behavior and provides a benchmark of excellence for each. The U.S. Life Insurance Studymeasures overall customer satisfaction based on performance in four factors (in alphabetical order): annual statement and billing; interaction; policy offerings; and price.
For more information about the U.S. Life Insurance study visit: https://www.jdpower.com/business/resource/us-individual-life-insurance-study.
Source: J.D. Power.