Forrester surveyed customers of 32 of the largest and most important auto and home insurance brands in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK about the quality of their experiences as a part of our The European Auto And Home Insurers Customer Experience Index, 2021.

The results are not pretty. Most French, Italian, Spanish, and UK auto and home insurance customers rate the quality of their experiences as just OK. Only two of the 26 brands we assessed in France, Italy, Spain, and the UK earned scores in the good category: MAIF in France and LV= in the UK. German customers fare better, rating their experiences as good on average. In fact, the worst insurance customer experience (CX) in Germany is better than the best CX in Italy and Spain.

But within Germany, as in each of the other four countries, most brands’ Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) scores are tightly clustered — experiences with one insurer are much the same as experiences with another insurer. This means that small advances can have a large impact. For example, Mutua Madrileña’s journey focus and digital improvements allowed it to leapfrog from third place in Spain in 2020 to first place this year. Insurers that can create easy, effective, and emotionally positive customer experiences can outpace the competition — and reap the rewards by winning and retaining more customers.

To seize the opportunity to provide differentiated CX, European auto and home insurers need to identify what drives great CX for the industry, country, and brand. Within our European Auto And Home Insurers CX Index, 2021, we see that:

  • Agent-related drivers are the most important for CX quality in Europe. Of the 34 underlying drivers we examine in the index, “My insurance agent answers all of my questions” has the most impact on an auto and home insurer’s overall CX in France, Italy, and Spain. In fact, agent-related drivers are the most important category of drivers in France and Italy and the second most important category in Spain (after customer service).
  • European insurers must make customers feel respected, especially in the UK. Demonstrating respect for customers by rewarding their loyalty is important for insurance CX — but most insurers fall short. This is especially true in the UK, where customers have long been penalized for their loyalty through practices such as price walking, in which insurers discount premiums for new customers and then raise prices for existing customers at renewal (a practice that must end as of January 2022). When customers feel respected, they are more likely to be loyal; our CX Index shows that 73% of European customers will advocate for a brand that makes them feel respected and 71% will spend more with it.

To read more about the trends in European auto and home insurance CX and the keys to providing good insurance CX within your country, see The European Auto And Home Insurers Customer Experience Index, 2021. Afterward, read How European Auto And Home Insurers Can Improve Their Customer Experience to discover how top-scoring financial services brands win at CX and to gather ideas on how to improve.