Life insurers ranked in new survey

The Roy Morgan survey of customers in the year to December 2016 found Allianz was the top performer, with 75.7 per cent satisfaction, followed by Insuranceline with 75.2 per cent and Suncorp-owned Asteron with 74.4 per cent.

ANZ's OnePath had the lowest satisfaction with 64.2 per cent, followed by TAL with 64.4 per cent and AMP with 66.6 per cent.

Only four of the top 13 risk and life companies showed an improvement in satisfaction over the last year – Asteron (up 5.6 percentage points), AIA Australia (up 2.6 percentage points), Westpac (up 2.4 percentage points) and MLC (up 0.1 percentage points).

Roy Morgan said the findings were based on its Single Source survey of more than 50,000 consumers per year, and includes detailed coverage of over 9,000 risk and life insurance policyholders.

Roy Morgan Research industry communications director, Norman Morris, said the channel used to purchase insurance impacts satisfaction levels.

“Purchasing in person from an insurance company – whether in person at a branch, online or by telephone – results in higher satisfaction than other channels including brokers,” Mr Morris said.

“Using an intermediary, whether it’s a broker, financial planner or employer, results in lower satisfaction with the insurance company.

“Companies operating mainly through intermediaries need to understand why this is so, as it may be dragging down their overall satisfaction.”

Adrian Flores

Adrian Flores is a deputy editor at Momentum Media, focusing mainly on banking, wealth management and financial services. He has also written for Public Accountant, Accountants Daily and The CEO Magazine.

You can contact him on [email protected].