Life Insurance Consumer experiences in the UK personal protection market

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LONDON l NEW YORK l SYDNEY l BEIJING l MANILA l SAO PAULO l JOHANNESBURG

Life Insurance

Consumer experiences in the UK personal protection market

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About CoreData Research

CoreData Research UK is the London-based arm of a broader specialist financial services research and strategy consultancy, which is incorporated in Sydney, Australia.

CoreData Research understands the boundaries of research are limitless, with the thirst for new research capabilities driven by customer demand, CoreData Research in recent years has began a global expansion into America, Africa, Asia and Europe.

The UK division is part of the CoreData Group and has operations in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, China and the Philippines. It also has associates working for the business in Argentina, Brazil and South Africa.

The group’s expansion means CoreData Research has the capabilities and expertise to conduct syndicated and bespoke research projects on six different continents, while still maintaining the high level of technical insight and professionalism our repeat clients demand.

With a primary focus on financial services CoreData Research provides clients with both bespoke and syndicated research services through a variety of data collection strategies and methodologies, along with consulting and research database hosting and outsourcing services.

CoreData Research provides both business-to-business and business-to-consumer research, while the group’s offering includes market intelligence, guidance on strategic positioning, methods for developing new business, advice on operational marketing and other consulting services.

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LONDON l NEW YORK l SYDNEY l BEIJING l MANILA l SAO PAULO l JOHANNESBURG CoreData Research prides itself in identifying market trends at the earliest opportunity and formulating insightful quantifiable research that clients can use to help them stay ahead of the market and better meet the day-to-day challenges facing their businesses.

Our focus is on bringing deep market knowledge to research and strategy development. The group's research is not just about information and data but at providing insight so clients can develop strategies that work.

The team is a complimentary blend of experienced financial services, research, marketing and media professionals, who together combine their years of industry experience with primary research to bring perspective to existing market conditions and evolving trends.

CoreData Research has developed a number of syndicated benchmark proprietary indexes across a broad range of business areas within the financial services industry.

 Experts in financial services research

 Deep understanding of industry issues and business trends  In-house proprietary industry benchmark data

 Industry leading research methodologies  Rolling benchmarks

The team at CoreData Research understands the demand and service aspects of the financial services market.

The group conducts regular research in banking, mortgages, retail saving, pensions, asset management and the financial advisory sector.

It is continuously in the market through a mixture of constant researching, polling and mystery shopping and provides in-depth research at low cost and rapid execution.

The group builds a picture of a client’s market from hard data which allows them to make efficient decisions which will have the biggest impact for the least spend.

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Snapshot

Consumers purchase life insurance to protect against life’s eventualities and ensure their families and loved ones are taken care of should something untoward happen to them.

This study assesses the experiences of more than 3,000 consumers when buying insurance, engaging with businesses, and ultimately (for some) claiming on that insurance.

In terms of the insurance industry, at a macro level there are certainly a number of challenges facing it at present, as there are for its many other sister parts to the financial services industry.

According to the Association of British Insurers, the UK insurance industry is the third largest in the world and the largest in Europe. The insurance sector manages investments that amount to 26% of the UK’s total net worth and contributes around £10.4bn in taxes annually.

In 2010, across the UK, there were 29.6 million protection term and whole life policies in force and people received benefits amounting to around £32.7m per day.

Long-term new business in the life insurance sector picked up in 2010, following a poor 2009. Total life premium income was almost 11% higher in the first half of 2010 compared to the same period the previous year.

The increase was said to have been derived primarily from the pensions market. Sales of savings products continued to fall and sales of protection products (term, whole life, income protection, critical illness) remained stable.

In 2009, the life insurance industry’s investment portfolio to GDP ratio for the UK was 85.6%, the highest in Europe after Denmark at 92.9% and followed by France at 73.6%.

Furthermore, in 2009, 73.2% of all insurance premiums in the UK were life insurance premiums.

Meanwhile the European insurance industry is in a period of transition. There is a slew of pending regulation within which this sector is set to deal with and will be obligated to grapple.

Solvency II, which is due to come into force in January 2013, is just one of the regulatory developments for which the insurance industry has to ready itself, and is arguably the most prominent regulatory change.

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This piece of regulation represents a planned overhaul of prudential regulation for European insurers. It will see existing European solvency rules for life, non-life and reinsurers be significantly upgraded and encourage companies to run their businesses with an increased focus on risk management, governance and increasing levels of disclosure.

Earlier this year, members of the Pan European Insurance Forum (PEIF), of the CEA (European insurance and reinsurance federation), of the CFO Forum and of the CRO Forum expressed strong concerns with developments in the Solvency II process.

In a letter to Michel Barnier, EU Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services, these organisations stated that, “the draft Solvency II implementing measures/delegating acts risk driving insurers out of their long-term business and would introduce pro-cyclicality into the framework.”

They added: “It is absolutely imperative that changes are made to the overly conservative approach being adopted in several areas of the current Level 2 text.”

In response, Commissioner Barnier said that much of the criticism of Solvency II is often unjustified and that this piece of regulation was subject to more consultation and impact studies than any other he was aware of.

Barnier claimed that the results of the fifth quantitative impact study showed that the insurance industry is well-positioned to meet the new solvency requirements as laid out in Solvency II.

Although the directive is still scheduled to come into force in January 2013, compliance might not be required until 2014 under proposals currently being discussed. Therefore, nothing as of yet is set in stone.

Therefore, although Solvency II remains at the forefront of the insurance industry’s concerns, it is not the only change it has to face.

This year, 2011, the UK government introduced the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Bill.

This bill, which was read in parliament for the second time in June, aims to radically change the relationship between consumers and insurance providers.

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Changes to the original law, which has hardly altered since 1906, promise to provide better protection for consumers while reducing cost to the industry.

However to 99.9% of consumers information relating to arcane laws that are more than a century old are of no interest whatsoever.

For consumers it is factors such as level of service when dealing with a life insurance provider, consistency of premiums, value for money etc. that have a bearing of them.

Therefore this study assesses the range of experiences that UK consumers have when dealing with specific providers.

The study’s sample size is sufficient in number to facilitate a broad range of comparative splits as part of the analysis.

For example the report outlines the variance between gender, age, geographic distribution, and also by individual life insurance company – with more than 20 firms represented.

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Executive Summary

 Trustworthiness is the largest driver of customer satisfaction, and exerts an influence of 36.6% on overall satisfaction.

 Value for money holds the second largest influence over whether customers are satisfied or not with their life insurance, with 30.2%.

 Overall satisfaction has the greatest influence (47.6%) on customers’ decisions about whether to recommend their provider or not.

 Value for money is the second most decisive factor about whether people are likely to recommend, having an influence of 21.6%.

 The factor that has least influence on whether a customer will recommend their life insurance provider is the clarity of cover and exclusions (5.4%).

 Trustworthiness is the major influnece on both genders’ overall satisfaction (36.4%) and in turn, their overall satisfaction exerts the greatest influence on their decision to make a recommendation (49.2%).

 The ease of buying a policy is the least determining factor for both males and females, exerting 3.6% influence on overall satisfaction and 4.8% of the influence on the likelihood to recommend.  Value for money was the second greatest influence on both decisions (31.8% and 24.6%).

 The overall satisfaction of older customers is mainly driven by value for money (39.5%).  Trustworthiness comes in at a close second, carrying 32.6% of influence.

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 Overall satisfaction is what will most drive older clients to recommend their life insurance provider to others (47.3%) while value for money is the second most important consideration (23.9%).

 Trustworthiness has less impact on the decision to recommend (13.2%).

 Younger customers’ overall satisfaction with their life insurance provider is mainly influenced by trustworthiness (40.2%).

 Clarity of cover is the second most influencing factor (18.9%) for young clients.

 Value for money is still a driving factor of overall satisfaction, exerting an influence of 16.5%.  The greatest influence driving both Northerners’ and Southerners’ decision to recommend their

provider is their overall satisfaction.

 For Northern customers, this determines 46.3% of their decision to recommend while for Southerners it represents 52.1%.

 For people in the North, the life company’s trustworthiness is the third determining factor (has an influence of 11.8% on the decision).

 While in the South, consistency of premiums garners third place among the influencing factors with 8.5%.

 The same percentage of both males and females (34%) have life insurance.

 More people in the North have life insurance as compared to people in the South of the UK although the difference is marginal (3.8%).

 The 63.8% of people in the North and 67.6% in the South may potentially sign up for a life insurance policy in the future and are therefore an untapped part of the market.

 Life insurance has a greater penetration in Northern Ireland than in other parts of the United Kingdom.

 Of this region, 50.3% have life insurance, with the next highest percentage being found in Scotland, where 43% of respondents hold a policy.

 London is home to the lowest percentage of life insurance policy holders.  At 26.4%, this is almost half that seen in Northern Ireland.

 A breakdown of respondents by age reveals that 6.8% more people under the age of 50 have life insurance as compared to those over the age of 50.

 Of those that have life insurance, 62.8% also have a mortgage while only 23.3% of those who don’t have life insurance have a mortgage.

 A significant difference (14.3%) can also be seen in terms of private medical insurance.

 A greater percentage of those who have life insurance also have private health cover (26.8% compared to 12.5%).

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Rankings

The

following series of scatter plot charts illustrate the relative ratings individual life insurance providers were granted by their respective customers.

The charts reveal a mixture of mash-ups. e.g. Overall satisfaction plotted against value for money, overall satisfaction plotted against perceived level of trustworthiness.

First up, the chart below indicates a strong relationship between customers’ satisfaction with the service they receive by their life insurance provider pitted against the score they awarded said company. There is a clear correlation between the two.

As one increases so does the other, giving rise to the diagonal slant below which suggests a symbiotic relationship between these two factors.

Aegon Aviva AXA Barclays Bright Grey Direct Line Friends Provident Gupa Halifax HSBC

Legal & General Liverpool Victoria

Lloyds TSB Natwest Phoenix Prudential Scottish Equitable Scottish Provident Scottish Widows Standard Life

Sun Life of Canada

Tesco The Co-operative Zurich 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 O v e ra ll Lev e l of S a tis fa c tion Overall Score Life Insurance Aegon Aviva AXA Barclays Bright Grey Direct Line Friends Provident Gupa Halifax HSBC Legal & General Liverpool Victoria Lloyds TSB Natwest Phoenix Prudential Scottish Equitable Scottish Provident Scottish Widows Standard Life Sun Life of Canada Tesco

The Co-operative Zurich

The cross-reference of overall scores against customer satisfaction sees Tesco come out on top, followed by Natwest.

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Tesco Bank, the finance arm of the supermarket was launched under the name Tesco Personal Finance in 1997. It was originally a joint venture between Tesco and The Royal Bank of Scotland, but in 2008, Tesco acquired the remaining 50% RBS shareholding.

In October 2009, Tesco Personal Finance started using the trading name Tesco Bank, as a nod to its long-term objective of creating a full-service retail bank. Its efforts in the life insurance space have been paying off as clearly, their customers are satisfied with the service provided and rate the business highly.

Arguably, the link between the provision of life insurance and the supermarket, with Tesco Clubcard points offered with every quote, for example, could well buoy the customer satisfaction and higher ratings further.

Customer satisfaction levels at Natwest are almost as high as those at Tesco, but the ratings given were slightly lower. The bank’s slogan claims that Natwest offers “helpful banking” and it seems that its life insurance customers agree that is in fact the case, considering they had the second highest ratings among the providers included in this study.

Phoenix came out as having the poorest performance in terms of customer satisfaction and ratings. Phoenix is a group of authorised life assurance companies which are owned by Phoenix Group Holdings. The principal life company branded Phoenix is Phoenix Life Limited.

Barclays had marginally better scores and higher rates of customer satisfaction, but still landed a good way down, away from the other providers like Standard Life and Lloyds TSB. These two companies don’t find themselves at the top of the overall rankings, but still have reasonable overall scores.

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