An online poll of home and auto insurance customers has found there is a generally high rate of satisfaction among them with the companies that provide their coverage.

 According to the public opinion study by Malvern, Pa.-based Insurance Research Council, 91 percent of respondents with auto insurance said that they were either very satisfied (61 percent) or fairly satisfied (30 percent) with their current auto insurer.

Eighty-nine percent of homeowners said that they were either very satisfied (56 percent) or fairly satisfied (33 percent) with their homeowners insurance company.

The online Harris Interactive poll of 1,002 persons was conducted December, 2008.

David Corum, a spokesman for the company, said there had not been a lot of change in customer satisfaction rates compared with previous years, although the number has “bounced around a lot.”

As an example, he said for auto the “very” and “fairly” satisfied combined rate in 1995 was 86 percent, in 2000, 96 percent, and in 2002, 86 percent.  The number of policyholders in the “very satisfied” category in 2002 was 41 percent compared with 61 percent for last year.

Among respondents who had shopped for auto insurance in the previous 12 months, three out of four respondents said they were very satisfied (24 percent) or fairly satisfied (51 percent) with the overall experience. Sixty-nine percent of respondents were very or fairly satisfied with the range of product and price options they found.

IRC said nearly 60 percent of those polled who shopped for auto insurance in the past year stayed with their existing insurer.

The study also looked at satisfaction among respondents in two groups of states with different levels of government involvement in the insurance market.

 IRC said respondents in states with government-based regulation of the insurance market were no more likely than those in states in which insurance is primarily regulated by market forces to say they were satisfied with their auto or homeowners insurer.

Elizabeth Sprinkel, IRC senior vice president, said, “The healthy level of consumer satisfaction with auto and homeowners insurance is good news for the industry. Moreover, this study indicates that consumers do not benefit in terms of satisfaction from heavy government involvement in the insurance market.”

The survey also asked respondents about recent non-claim contact with their auto insurers, about their reading of mandated brochures or pamphlets inserted with policy renewals, and their opinions on recent cost increases in various lines of insurance.

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