Gracechurch-BIBA survey: UK insurer service improves since the start of 2023

The latest Gracechurch-BIBA UK Insurers Monitor, the most comprehensive survey of broker views in the UK commercial insurance market, shows a marked improvement in insurer service in the first half of 2023. The UK Market Average Net Promoter Score™ rises 9 points since January and 16 points vs. mid-2022 scores.

However, despite this overall improvement, the survey highlights polarised service scores; with several insurers’ service improving strongly, and some who continue to have low Net Promoter Scores (six insurers with -22 or less). Early indications from regional analysis also reveals high levels of variance of service provision across the UK.

While broker scores for individual aspects of service attributes have generally improved on 2022 levels, they remain relatively low overall. Broker commentary reinforces this underperformance, particularly on Speed: delays (in both claims and renewals) and slow responses feature prominently as areas brokers say they want to see improved.

The human touch remains key to high service scores; the best insurers do well on service-related strengths like responsiveness (i.e. responding in a timely manner to queries) and availability of underwriters. Knowledge is a hygiene factor in service terms, essential but not differentiating.

Complementing the human aspect of service are e-trading platforms, which most brokers (75%) now use and view positively. Here again the survey shows that there is room for improvement: for example, many brokers have difficulties in escalating queries to underwriters where risks are out-of-scope.

Gracechurch MD Ben Bolton comments on these findings:

“When we started the study in mid’22 insurer scores were pretty low across the board and only one insurer was in positive NPS territory. However, in the last 7-8 months we have seen several insurers’ service levels pick up strongly, sufficient to move the overall market performance in a positive direction.”