NU Online News Service, Aug. 21, 11:33 a.m.EDT

An online poll of home and auto insurance customers has foundthere is a generally high rate of satisfaction among them with thecompanies that provide their coverage.

According to the public opinion study by Malvern, Pa.-basedInsurance Research Council, 91 percent of respondents with autoinsurance said that they were either very satisfied (61 percent) orfairly satisfied (30 percent) with their current auto insurer.

Eighty-nine percent of homeowners said that they were eithervery satisfied (56 percent) or fairly satisfied (33 percent) withtheir homeowners insurance company.

The online Harris Interactive poll of 1,002 persons wasconducted December, 2008.

David Corum, a spokesman for the company, said there had notbeen a lot of change in customer satisfaction rates compared withprevious years, although the number has "bounced around a lot."

As an example, he said for auto the "very" and "fairly"satisfied combined rate in 1995 was 86 percent, in 2000, 96percent, and in 2002, 86 percent. The number of policyholders inthe "very satisfied" category in 2002 was 41 percent compared with61 percent for last year.

Among respondents who had shopped for auto insurance in theprevious 12 months, three out of four respondents said they werevery satisfied (24 percent) or fairly satisfied (51 percent) withthe overall experience. Sixty-nine percent of respondents were veryor fairly satisfied with the range of product and price optionsthey found.

IRC said nearly 60 percent of those polled who shopped for autoinsurance in the past year stayed with their existing insurer.

The study also looked at satisfaction among respondents in twogroups of states with different levels of government involvement inthe insurance market.

IRC said respondents in states with government-based regulationof the insurance market were no more likely than those in states inwhich insurance is primarily regulated by market forces to say theywere satisfied with their auto or homeowners insurer.

Elizabeth Sprinkel, IRC senior vice president, said, "Thehealthy level of consumer satisfaction with auto and homeownersinsurance is good news for the industry. Moreover, this studyindicates that consumers do not benefit in terms of satisfactionfrom heavy government involvement in the insurance market."

The survey also asked respondents about recent non-claim contactwith their auto insurers, about their reading of mandated brochuresor pamphlets inserted with policy renewals, and their opinions onrecent cost increases in various lines of insurance.

More detailed information on the study's methodology andfindings is available by contacting David Corum by phone at (610)644-2212, ext. 7506; by fax at (610) 640-5388; or by e-mail [email protected]., or on IRC's Web site at www.ircweb.org.

Copies of the 23-page study are available at $65 each in theU.S. ($80 elsewhere).

The Insurance Research Council is a division of the nonprofitAmerican Institute for CPCU and the Insurance Institute ofAmerica.