Perhaps it’s the dark, gray winter skies that are making me curmudgeonly, but I’m having one of those weeks, and at the centre of my frustration are the motor insurers in the United Kingdom.
Changing cars has resulted in having to change car insurers or pay three times my current premium. I’d happily stay with the current insurer, give or take a few percentage points, but having to pay three times over the odds helps me overcome my inertia to change. I also lost the no claims bonus as I’d canceled policy four weeks before the end of term date. (Why doesn’t the no claims discount follow policyholder not policy?) I lost count of the minutes listening to awful muzak in a call center queue. One call center company had to pass me on to another section, which was then unavailable and I was told to call back. Remind me who the customer is here?
And of all the insurers I was dealing with, not one offered a customer portal where I could change my details or cancel my policy. That would have put the power back into my hands as the consumer and would have reduced the pressure on their call centres.
All this speaks to a larger trend in the UK: Our new
Is there great customer service out there? I am sure there is. I’ve even heard about it. But for middle-income, middle-England buying personal lines insurance, it’s hard to find. The great economic theories espouse that poorly performing business will be punished by customers moving their money for better deals. But in this case, what choice does the consumer have?
As insurers chase down growth and continue to invest in the front office (see our report), existing policyholders are left with inflexible service and often brutal customer experience.
This blog has been reprinted with permission from
Catherine Stagg-Macey is a senior analyst in Celent's insurance practice, and can be reached at cstagg-macey@celent.com.
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Where might this all end? What are the factors that could change the state of play? These are great questions for which I have no answer. I’ve sat on conference panels with greater minds than mine, and they shake their heads over the state of personal lines. CEO’s bemoan the power of the aggregator and lack of customer loyalty. As a customer, this is my lament for customer service. I hope someone can prove me wrong.
