Survey: Customers More Satisfied With Homeowners Insurance
October 05 2009 - 7:30AM
Dow Jones News
It took a recession to make it happen, but consumers are finally
beginning to appreciate their insurance companies.
Insurers maintained or cut policy prices and made more effort to
show customers how to reduce insurance costs in 2009, and
policyholders responded with a much more positive view of their
insurers than in past years, according to a survey of just under
13,000 homeowners insurance customers conducted from April to June
2009 by market researcher J.D. Power and Associates.
"The insurance industry is being impressive on pricing at a time
when so many others are not," said Jeremy Bowler, senior director
of J.D. Power's insurance practice, in an interview Sunday. The
attitude among many of the customers surveyed is that "insurers are
not hitting customers when they are on their knees when everyone
else is." He said he saw similar results in an auto insurance
customer survey conducted in around the same time period.
Overall customer satisfaction with homeowners insurance had been
about flat for the last four years but surged an "unprecedented" 21
points on J.D. Power's 1,000 point scale, to an average of 773 in
2009 from the year before, Bowler said. Most of the increase was
driven by customer satisfaction with the price they were being
charged, which rose 46 points on the same 1,000 point scale, he
said. Overall, 60% of customers surveyed said their homeowners
insurance costs stayed about the same as the year before, 8% saw
prices drop and 32% said their price went up, which Bowler said was
a better performance than in past years.
Amica Mutual was the top scorer among the companies J.D. Powers
ranks, and has led the ratings for years. American International
Group Inc.'s (AIG) homeowners insurance company came in last in the
ratings, which Bowler said was driven mostly by customers that gave
AIG lower-than-average scores for such things as customer
interaction. Bowler said that customer reaction to AIG's government
bailout probably played a role in AIG's lower scores.
The top scorer overall was USAA, which J.D. Power does not
include in its rankings because it offers homeowners insurance only
to the military and their families.
-By Lavonne Kuykendall, Dow Jones Newswires; 312-750-4141;
lavonne.kuykendall@dowjones.com