The key role played by intermediaries in the retail insurance distribution

Abstract

Purpose The insurance market has high churn rates because customers’ purchase decision-making process and claims management rely heavily on intermediaries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role played by insurers and intermediaries in customer satisfaction, as well as in the preferences of customers regarding the purchase decision-making process. Design/methodology/approach The first step was to select the most important attributes for Portuguese insurance customers. Three focus groups were conducted (using B2C and B2B markets), and data from Portuguese car insurance customers were gathered through an ad hoc questionnaire. Structural equation models and the multidimensional scaling unfolding model were applied. Findings Intermediaries play a key role in the retail insurance distribution channels by influencing customer satisfaction, claims management and the purchasing process (premium acceptance). Practical implications Because of the influence that intermediaries have on customer satisfaction, insurers should improve their partnerships (back office support) with intermediaries. Originality/value The study contributes to the retail distribution literature of the insurance sector by providing empirical evidence of the impact of intermediaries on customers’ satisfaction.

Non-life insurance cancellation: a systematic quantitative literature review

“…The publications selected were analysed according to their methodological approach. Eight papers are theoretical (Larsson and Broström 2019;Brophy 2015;Gallo 2014;Van Gelder et al 2018;Guillenet al 2008;Naujoks et al 2017;Rawson et al 2013;Julie Robson 2015) and 18 are empirical; of the latter, 16 are quantitative (Bolancé et al 2016;Brockett et al 2008;de la Llave et al 2019;Felício and Freire 2016;Frank and Lamiraud 2009;Gamble et al 2009;Guillen et al 2003Guillen et al , 2009Guillén et al 2012;Günther et al 2014;Haugen and Moger 2016;Jeong et al 2018;Lin 2010;López-Díaz et al 2017;Paredes 2018;Staudt and Wagner 2018), one is qualitative (Robson and Sekhon 2011) and one uses a mixed methodology (Dominique-Ferreira 2018). This sample indicates that the study of the cancellation of insurance policies is predominantly conducted through empirical quantitative analysis.…”

“…Survival analysis and frailty modelling were also used in two other papers (Guillén et al 2012;Haugen and Moger 2016). Structural equations were applied in two articles (Felício and Freire 2016;Dominique-Ferreira 2018). Other techniques used in the reviewed documents were probit regression (de la Llave et al 2019), OLS multiple linear regression analyses (Gamble et al 2009), factor analysis (Lin 2010), association rule (Jeong et al 2018) and ROC curves to compare methods to predict lapsing (Bolancé et al 2016).…”

“…Usually, loyal behaviour exists between intermediaries and customers, but not between customers and insurers, which may lead to high churn rates (Farley Short et al 2003). When problems occur in the insurance value chain, customers tend to remain loyal to intermediaries but may change insurance company (Dominique-Ferreira 2018).…”

Digital touchpoints and multichannel segmentation approach in the life insurance industry

“…However, the distribution channels of life insurance vary significantly between markets (Insurance Europe, 2018). The intermediaries play a significant role in the life insurance distribution channels, because consumers usually buy products from them and rarely directly from insurers; consumers are more loyal to intermediaries than to insurers (Dominique-Ferreira, 2018). Loyalty development in life insurance is based on salespersons' characteristics and their relational selling behaviour (Yu and Tseng, 2016).…”

“…Although the traditional, personal distribution channel still dominates the market, e-retail should receive more attention from both insurers and intermediaries (Dominique-Ferreira, 2018). The Internet-based channel could be a complementary one to the traditional distribution channels.…”