Direct Line and LV= among most recommended car insurers

No comments

Women are happy with their insurers but men are not, Consumer Intelligence finds

Direct Line, LV= and RSA are among the 10 most recommended car insurance brands, according to research by benchmarking firm Consumer Intelligence.

The company also found that insurance providers were pleasing women, but not men.

The top 10 list, which also includes big names such as Saga, RAC and RIAS (see table below), is based on a survey of more than 12,000 consumers, which was conducted before they renewed their motor policies. It asked how likely they were to recommend their insurer or broker.

The survey generates a “net promoter score” (NPS), which subtracts negative responses from positive ones and produces a measure of how likely customers are to recommend a provider. Any score above zero is considered good.

Battle of the sexes

The survey also discovered that women’s attitudes to car insurance providers were different from men’s. The industry’s average NPS was 1.2. Women gave the industry a good score of 5.9, but men gave the industry a poor one – 3.4.

According to Consumer Intelligence, this shows insurers are ticking the right boxes for women but “doing something very wrong overall” when it comes to men.

Consumer Intelligence chief executive Ian Hughes said: “The Gender Directive meant that insurers had to move away from pricing as a way of appealing to women and it seems they are doing something right to get such positive scores.”

Better than average

All the brands in the overall top 10 scored much higher than the motor industry average of 1.2, with LV=’s score more than 20 times the benchmark.

Hughes said: “Net promoter score is a highly valuable metric to gauge how a brand is truly performing.

“The brands in the top 10 tables can be very happy that they have scored so highly and are soaring above the market average. Several brands, such as LV=, M&S, The Co-operative and Saga can be justifiably proud that they are popular with both men and women, especially in such a competitive marketplace.”

Overall NPS top 10	Female NPS top 10	Male NPS top 10
Direct Line	Aviva	LV=
LV=	Post Office	M&S
M&S	Direct Line	RSA
RSA	Tesco	RAC
RAC	Sainsbury’s	RIAS
RIAS	RIAS	Saga
Saga	The Co-operative Insurance	Sainsbury’s
Sainsbury’s	Saga	Tesco
Tesco	M&S	The Co-operative Insurance
The Co-operative Insurance	LV=	Zurich