Insurance Firms Ranked on How They Treat Online Customers in Second Quarter 2006 Online Customer Respect Study; Insurance Industry Records Lowest Scores for Online Customer Respect Among 12 Industries Studied
Jun 19,2006 00:00 by Business-Wire
IPSWICH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 19, 2006--The Customer Respect Group, an international research and consulting firm that focuses on how corporations treat their online customers, today released findings from its Second Quarter 2006 Online Customer Respect Study of Insurance firms.
Insurance Industry
The report analyzed 52 health care, life and health, and property & casualty insurer websites. According to the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, 85 percent of people go online to research before purchasing insurance.
The insurance industry scored lowest in respecting website visitors - among the 12 industries studied by The Customer Respect Group in the past year -- overall and in every sub-index. The overall average CRI score for insurance firms was 5.1 against the overall average for all companies of 5.7. Property and Casualty companies scored an average of 5.3, Life Insurance 5.2 and Health Care companies, a disappointing 4.8. Findings from this research indicate that insurance companies need to respond better to online inquiries. Twenty-seven percent of email inquiries were completely ignored, over twice the percentage of the general list surveyed in the past year.
The top-scoring insurers and their CRI rating were:
1 Liberty Mutual Insurance Group Property and Casualty 7.1
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2 AIG Direct Property and Casualty 6.8
The Progressive Corporation Property and Casualty
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4 AFLAC Life and Health 6.7
GEICO Property and Casualty
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6 Kaiser Permanente Health Care Plans 6.4
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7 Aetna Health Care Plans 6.3
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8 Farmers Insurance Group Property and Casualty 6.2
Nationwide Property and Casualty
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10 Principal Financial Group Life and Health 6.0
The Allstate Corporation Property and Casualty
The complete table can be found at www.customerrespect.com/default.asp?hdnFilename=BWINSQ206.htm
About The Customer Respect Group
The Customer Respect Group is an international research and consulting firm that uses its CRI and methodology to help companies improve their treatment of customers online. Through the expertise of its research team, together with data collected from over 2,500 website evaluations, it is ideally positioned to perform website audits, recommendation improvements and provide benchmark information. The Customer Respect Group is headquartered in metropolitan Boston. For additional information, visit http://www.customerrespect.com, call (617) 378-3173 or e-mail info@customerrespect.com.
Contacts
George Cohen Communications
George Cohen, 617-325-0011
george@gccpr.com
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© Business Wire 2006