Auto insurance claims experience key to customer satisfaction

Questionable tow and glass claims run rampant

A new report by J.D. Power has shown that relationships with policyholders can be made or broken in that area.

The latest J.D. Power and Associates report, has revealed that a relationship with customers can be made or broken by the way that an auto insurance company handles claims that have been made.

This is the first year that this study has been performed by the company to measure customer satisfaction.

The report on the research was called the “J.D. Power 2013 Canadian Auto Claims Satisfaction Study”. It looked into the auto insurance marketplace in Canada and investigated the way that the claims experience following physical vehicle damage loss impacts the way a customer feels about his or her insurer.

Auto insurance Satisfaction ratesThere were a number of different factors taken into consideration for the auto insurance claims process.

Depending on the claim’s complexity, the policyholder may experience some or all of the different factors that were taken into account in the auto insurance satisfaction study. These include the first notice of loss, the service interaction, appraising the damage, the vehicle damage repairs, the experience renting a temporary vehicle, and the settlement itself. According to the research, it is the settlement that is the most important factor for achieving satisfaction both for repair claimants and those who experienced a total loss.

That said, while the settlement has the biggest impact of all of the auto insurance claim factors on customer satisfaction and relationship, the first notice of loss (FNOL) – which is the first contact made by a policyholder in order to notify the insurer that there has been a crash and/or damage – was found to set the tone for all of the remaining steps of the process. The average length of the first call, according to the data in the report, was 18 minutes.

According to the J.D. Power senior director of the firm’s insurance practice, Jeremy Bowler, “The first call to notify the provider of the damage is critical to customer satisfaction with the entire claims process.” He went on to add that if the initial auto insurance notification communication is a positive one, the “odds are good that the claims process will go well and also bodes well for the long-term relationship with the customer.”