NU Online News Service, Feb. 27, 1:33 p.m.EST

Agent satisfaction with their carrier partners shows littlechange from last year and regional carriers would appear to bedoing a better job with agents than the national carriers,according to an agent's association survey.

Last week, the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of NewYork released the results of its Report on Carrier Performance for2012.

Overall carrier satisfaction with personal lines carriers wasalmost unchanged, with a slight drop of 0.6 points to 74.6 fromlast year.

On the commercial lines side, satisfaction increased by 1 pointto 75.8.

The survey involved more than 281 respondents from 256 agencies.The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percent.

“What this means is that agent-company relations are constantlyevolving as the marketplace changes,” says Kathy Weinheimer,IIABNY's senior vice president of industry relations and educationin a statement.

On the personal lines side, national carriers had an overallscore of 71.8, a decline of only .01 point from the year before,and remained at the bottom of the satisfaction list when comparedto super regional and regional carriers.

Where last year there was little difference in satisfactionbetween super regional and regional carriers, this year theregional carriers came out on top with a score of 79.1, up 0.1points from last year, while super-regionals scored 76.8, a drop of2.5 points.

On the commercial lines side, national carriers saw the mostimprovement with a score of 73.4, improving by 2.1 points. However,super-regionals and regionals still outshined the national carrierswith scores of 78.7 and 77.2, respectively.

Super-regional carriers saw a slight decrease in their score ona year-to-year basis dropping 0.1 point while regional carriersimproved 0.3 points.

The survey consisted of six component factors:

• Underwriters are empowered, responsive and consistent.

• Technology and documentation are easy to use.

• Keeps its promise, treats me, my agency and my customers withhonesty and fairness.

• Treats our relationship as a real partnership.

• Field and office personnel have a relationship with me and mycustomers, and they are very responsive.

• Profit sharing and commission arrangements are fair.

Of the six, “Keeps its promise…,” had the highest score with75.7 for personal lines and 76.4 for commercial. For personallines, that was a slight drop of 0.6 points, but an improvement forcommercial lines of 0.3 points.

“Profit sharing and commission arrangements are fair,” receivedthe lowest score of 69.1 for personal and 70.9 for commercial. Thatscore was a 1.7 point improvement over the period year forcommercial, but 0.7 point drop for personal lines carriers.

In the area of technology and documentation, commercial lineswere unchanged with a score of 73.5. Personal lines hedged offslightly with a score of 73.4, down 0.6 points.

While not releasing the individual scores for companies, theIIABNY did honor the companies with the best overall individualscores during a ceremony in late January.

Of the commercial lines carriers, The Harford received thenational carrier award, while NGM Insurance Co. won forsuper-regional. Sterling Insurance Co. took the regional award.

On the personal lines side, Kemper Preferred took the nationalcarrier award; Preferred Mutual Insurance Co. the super-regionalhonor, and Sterling Insurance Co. the regional award.