Insurers Ignoring Online Customer Privacy: Study

Among all insurers, the firm's Online Customer Respect Study gave its number one rating to Cincinnati Financial Corp. of Fairfield, Ohio, with a 9.6 score and its lowest to Unitrin of Chicago at 3.

Don Southwell, Unitrin president, said the site the study rated, www.unitrin.com, "is our Web site that we use for investor relations. It's not intended to be a customer Web site. We have several others for customer use-this one isn't." The site contains links to Unitrin, auto, specialty and mult-ilines companies and Kemper Auto and Home.

According to the consulting firm, the average insurer's score was 6.8 on a 10 point scale.

Poor scores for principles and responsiveness "continue to plague" the insurance sector, the Customer Respect Group said. The firm reported that 35 percent of insurers share data without permission from users. The consultants said it looked at the firms that rank among the countries largest 1,000 companies.

The Customer Respect Group said it assigns a Customer Respect Index rating to each company on a scale of one-to-10, with 10 being the highest achievable score.

The firm explained that the index is a qualitative and quantitative in-depth analysis and independent measure of a customer's online experience when interacting with companies via the Internet.

The Customer Respect Group said it did its ratings using 60 different indicators developed by detailed study of more than 1,000 Web sites across a spectrum of industries

Indicators were grouped together and measured as indicators of simplicity (ease of navigation), privacy (respects customer privacy), attitude (customer focus of site), transparency (open and honest policies), responsiveness (quick and thorough responses to inquiries) and principles (values and respects customer data), the firm said.

This year's results were comparable to a study it did last year, the company said?noting, however, that scores at the top were higher than in the past at 9.6 compared with 9.1.

The sharing of data without permission was done, even though 93 percent of firms have privacy policies, the company said.

Thirty-seven percent of firms were said to respond to only one-half of, or no online inquiries. While more than half of surveyed firms were found to have auto-responder technology, in which e-mails are automatically sent back to users to confirm the receipt of their inquiry and let them know when they should expect a response, 16 percent of the time no response was sent following an auto responder e-mail.

"We are certainly cheered by the results of the top several companies in our survey," said Roger Fairchild, president of The Customer Respect Group. "But frankly we are concerned to note that so many of the nation's largest insurance companies are sharing personal data without permission and that responsiveness to online inquiries remains, at best, spotty. These firms need to strongly consider the connection between respectful Web sites and their ability to compete for new business and retain current customers."

Other findings for sector firms included the following:

? Surveyed firms receive the best overall rating (7.9) for simplicity and the worst, (5.8) for principles.

? Thirteen percent of firms did not respond to any online inquiries, while 63 percent responded to all inquiries. Of the latter, 88 percent responded within 48 hours and the remaining 12 percent responded after three days.

? Twenty-four percent of firms responded to half of the inquiries received. Of these, 75 percent responded within 48 hours and 15 percent responded after four days.

? Fifty-five percent of these firms use auto-responder technology. Of these, 60 percent followed with a full response, 24 percent followed up half of their auto responses with a reply. Another 16 percent didn't follow up with a reply.

? Some 82 percent of companies provide e-mail forms for online inquiries. Fourteen percent provide e-mail addresses. An additional four percent provide only offline contacts such as phone numbers or postal addresses. Fifty percent provide a keyword search function on their site.

? Ninety-three percent of sector firms have privacy policies on their sites explaining how customers' personal data is being used. Of those that do, 32 percent do not collect data or use collected data only for internal purposes, 22 percent share data with affiliates or subsidiaries, and 35 percent share data without permission from users.

? Sixty-nine percent of firms use cookie technology. Of these, two percent provide a full explanation of how cookies can be disabled, 35 percent mention that they can be disabled, 46 percent explain how cookies work, and 17 percent don't mention cookies at all.

Customer Respect Group said it markets methodology to help companies improve treatment of online customers. Information about the firm is available through www. CustomerRespect.com or 425-454-4151.