T HE QUESTIONNAIRE

According to a survey made by Forsikringsguiden.dk (Forsikring og Penge, 2017) one in fifth young consumer does not have a home insurance. The findings from the questionnaire

correspond to some degree with theirs, as results show that 87% hold those insurances

(Appendix N). That leaves 13% of the respondents without that specific insurance. Given that only one respondent does not have any insurances at all, it is a large number of respondents that choose not to have home insurance, which according to Lone Eriksen, Anja Lintrup Sørensen and Ann Lehmann Erichsen (2019), is one of the most important insurances.

In line with the theory and the EPSI reports (EPSI 2017; EPSI 2018) the findings from the survey questionnaire reveals a high satisfaction rate among the respondents (Appendix O). The respondents were told to rank their satisfaction level from “highly dissatisfied” through to

“highly satisfied”. The majority was either “satisfied” or “highly satisfied”, taking up 77% of all respondents (Ibid.). The rest was neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, resulting in none of the respondents being “dissatisfied” to any degree. The majority of respondents who are satisfied with their current insurance provider are the ones who have either had an insurance claim handled or been in contact with them for other reasons. The respondents who were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied have not filed a claim or been in contact with the insurance provider for any other reason, thus they are not aware of the level of service they are paying for.

In terms of how the respondents chose their current insurance provider, two choices stood out as being the most common. Word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family is the biggest contributor with regards to how the respondents found and chose their insurance provider. In fact, 44% of the respondents made use of their friends and families when they chose their insurance provider (Appendix P). 38% responded with “other”, as the other fixed

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responses did not fit their answer (Ibid.). The respondents were encouraged to specify why they chose “other” as their answer, which everybody did. The majority of those chose their

insurance provider via their union, due to a relationship between the union and the insurance provider. A small portion of the respondents, consisting of 9%, did their own information research by reading insurance companies web pages before they selected one (Ibid.). A few respondents made their decision because of a commercial they had seen, and one was called directly with an offer from an insurance company. The low percentage of respondents who chose to do their own research in order to find an insurance company are interesting.

Considering what is written about millennials and that they are sometimes labelled “digital natives”, there is surprisingly few who make their own research on the subject. That the biggest portion of the respondents make use of Word-of-mouth in order to choose their insurance provider, correspond well with the research made by Applied Systems (2018), as they found Word-of-mouth referrals to influence young consumer the most, when they purchase

insurances.

The respondents were asked to answer which channel they used in order to purchase their insurance, after they had chosen one to purchase. The responses are nearly evenly distributed.

38% purchased their insurance via the company’s webpage and the same amount chose to call the insurance company to make their purchase (Appendix Q). One respondent went to the insurance company’s branch to buy the insurance (Ibid.). The rest of the respondents, 24%, chose “other” as their answer while specifying their use of purchase channel (Ibid.). The majority of those bought their insurance via their union, were due to the relationship between the union and the insurance provider.

As theories suggest, communication, and its frequency, is a vital part of building a long-term relationship with customers, hence it is a crucial part of the questionnaire. The major part of the respondents, consisting of 36,5%, are only in contact with their insurance provider in cases where they need to file an insurance claim, thus it is the customer who contacts the provider (Appendix R). 26% of the respondents are in contact with their insurance company once a year and the third biggest part, 19%, have never had contact since the time of purchase (Ibid.). A small part, of only 6%, have quarterly contact with their insurance provider and a slightly bigger part, 7%, only have had contact when they changed their insurance provider (Ibid.).

The channels used by the respondents in order to communicate with an insurance company, are mixed between the fixed responses, however one channel was used significantly more than others. 46% of the respondents use their telephone as their primary source of communication (Appendix S), making it the one used the most. 23,5% used the company’s web page to communicate via and an equally part of the respondents makes use of email when

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communicating (Ibid.). No one uses Facebook or other social media to claim a file or get questions answered and only 2% choose to meet with an insurance agent face-to-face (Ibid.).

When asked which communication channel the respondents would prefer to use, the

distribution stays nearly the same, indicating the respondents might already use their preferred communication channel. The part that prefer telephone as a communication channel stays unchanged at 46% (Appendix T). Online communication rise to 27% and it is worth noting, that it is the youngest segment, 18-21 years old, that have moved from telephone to online usage (Ibid.). Email falls to 20%, while face-to-face communication rise to 3,5% (Ibid.).

In terms of the respondents last point of contact, most of the respondents, taking up 26%, say they have been in contact with their insurance company in the past 1-4 months (Appendix U).

19% was in contact with their insurance company 8-12 months ago, while the same amount cannot remember when they last was in contact (Ibid.). 12% percent said “4-8 months ago”, while the rest of the respondents is equally divided between “less than a month”, “more than one year” and “more than two years” (Ibid.). 36,5% of the respondents added a reason for their contact (Ibid.). The main reason for the contact was an insurance claim, which was the case for 48% of the reasons given (Ibid.). 32% needed to make changes in regard to their current insurances or had a question they needed to clarify (Ibid.). In a few instances the respondents were in contact with their insurance company in order to cancel the service. Common for all of the reasons are, that the contact is made on the customers’ initiative.

In general, the respondents feel that they have some kind of understanding and knowledge about insurances. 40% feel they have some level of understanding, while 33% feel they have a high level of understanding, followed by 15% who feel they are above high level (Appendix W). Only 10,5% feel they have a low level of understanding followed by 1,5% with a level lower than that (Ibid.).

When asked if the respondents are confident in the coverage provided by their insurance company, the results are significantly clear, as 93% have answered “yes” to the question (Appendix V). Thus, 7% of the respondents are insecure about their situation in terms of being covered by their insurances (Ibid.).

Lastly, the respondents were asked to answer how attached they are to their insurance company.

The biggest part, taking up 33%, feel they are attached to their current insurance provider to some degree, while 32% feel they have a low level of attachment and 20% feel a very low level of attachment (Appendix X). 13% have a high level of attachment and 2,5% feel even more attached (Ibid.). Thus, more than half of the respondents (52%) do not feel any attachment to their current insurance company (Ibid.).

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When crossing the respondents’ level of attachment with their understanding and knowledge about insurances, some interesting numbers turn out. In order for a customer to feel some sort of attachment to an insurance company, they will need to have some degree of understanding and knowledge. On the other hand, the highest feeling of understanding and knowledge does not necessarily equal a high level of attachment.