A J.D. Power study has shown that policyholders are not as happy with their insurers as they once were.
According to the results of a study that was conducted by J.D. Power and Associates, customer satisfaction with American auto insurance companies has fallen in five different categories within the last year.
The research showed that policyholders are not expressing the level of satisfaction that they were in 2012.
The areas of auto insurance customer satisfaction that were measured by J.D. Power were in policy offerings, price, interaction, billing and payments, and claims. What the J.D. Power 2013 U.S. Auto Insurance Study showed as that all five factors had decreasing scores when compared to the same time last year.
The largest drops in auto insurance satisfaction were in policy offerings and in price, which fell considerably.
According to the press release from J.D. Power, “Scores across all five factors have decreased year over year, with price and policy offerings both declining by 13 points.” It went on to explain that “These two factors are the primary forces contributing to lower overall satisfaction.”
The study ranked the various areas of satisfaction on a scale of 1,000. Price satisfaction saw the lowest score among the five that were examined, bringing in a score of 716 points. According to the J.D. Power global insurance practice senior director, Jeremy Bowler, the current low interest market has made it so that many auto insurance companies are filing new rate structures so that they can compensate for the losses they are experiencing in their underwriting.
Bowler explained that in order to be able to ready themselves for the probably decrease in customer satisfaction and run the risk of rising attrition that can occur after a premium increase, auto insurance companies need to do a better job of reaching out to their policyholders in a proactive way so that they can explain precisely why those rate increases are occurring. The scores used in the report were from the Power Circle Ratings of J.D. Power, which are based on consumer opinions from people who have used the product that is being rated.