Disturbing results for life and health insurers in RaboPlus Financial Confidence Index

By John Grant Rabobank yesterday released the first of its RaboPlus Financial Confidence Index. The Rabobank survey should have alarm bells ringing throughout the boardrooms of life and health insurers. The survey asked respondents various questions related to the financial services Industry. Life, general and health insurance was included and it shows that confidence in the industry could be improved. For the question; "Do you feel confident valid claims will be honoured?". Only 39% of respondents were positive about health insurers, 52% positively responded about life insurers and general insurers came in top at 68%. An alarming 17% of people answered negatively for life companies, 15% negative for health insurance and 12%  indicated a negative view with a "strongly disagree" or "somewhat disagree" response for general insurance. Overall this must be of concern to the industry as a whole and particularly for life and health insurers. To the statement, "They act fairly and with integrity", the positive response was only 42% for life companies, 34% for health and 58% of general insurers. On the negative view those who either disagreed or strongly disagreed totaled 19% for the life industry, 15% for health insurers and 13% for general insurers. Perceptions improve slightly when measured across people with current products. This specifically targets ones trust in your insurer. Another recent survey by International PR company Edelman shows global confidence in the Industry has taken a hit. This survey involved respondents from 18 countries, New Zealand did not participate. Overall in the global survey, financial services players being banks and insurers performed very poorly. The life industry was last of those surveyed, coming out with a trust index of 40%, this was down from 45% in 2008. It also showed that trust in the global banking industry dived from 56% in 2008 to 45% in 2009. Almost certainly fuelled by banking failures in America and Europe. If New Zealand had been included then our results would almost certainly have been higher. However, it does show a decline in perception of the financial services industry. The global financial crisis and the role banks and insurers have played impacting on this perception. Locally, the Rabobank survey has now provided a benchmark of attitudes to the financial services industry. Also included was how people rated the relationship with their insurers. General insurers are the best with 59% rating them good, 50% for health insurers and life companies come in last with only 44% rating their life insurer relationship as being good. The Rabobank survey is to be conducted every six months. "”"”"”"” John Grant edits the insurance coverage on interest.co.nz