P-C Insurers Do Well In Customer Satisfaction Poll

Property-casualty insurers ranked higher than the national average for U.S. industries in a customer satisfaction survey issued by the University of Michigan.

The findings are an indicator of customer evaluation of the quality of products and services available to household consumers in the United States, the university said.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index factors in scores from about 200 companies in 43 industries and from government agencies.

On a 100-point scale, the index climbed to 74.9, up 0.7 percent from the previous quarter and almost 2 percent from the previous year, according to the university. The p-c industry came in with a 78 on the scale.

Overall, this is the highest the index has been at since its first measurement in 1994.

The report is an indicator of financial performance at both the company and industry level, said the University of Michigan.

“The economy may not be coming in for a soft landing,” Professor Claes Fornell, director of the University's National Quality Research Center which measures the data, said in a statement. “With the confluence of a number of favorable economic factors, there may be no landing at all.”

He said the trends point to continued economic growth.

The report scored five major insurers for their market position with the general consuming public. The companies were Berkshire Hathaway's GEICO, State Farm Mutual, Zurich Financial Services' Farmers Group Inc., Allstate Corporation and Progressive. A sixth category covered all other insurers.

GEICO had the highest score for 2006 at 83, 6.4 percent higher than 2005. State Farm followed with a score of 81, 2.5 percent higher than 2005.

Allstate, Farmers and all others came in at 78. That was an increase of 2.6 percent over 2005 for Allstate and 6.8 percent for Farmers. All others were unchanged.

Progressive dropped 2.7 percent in the survey, going from 75 in 2005 to 73 in 2006.

For the industry as a whole, its average score of 78 remained unchanged from 2005, which is one point higher than 2004.

In the 12 years of the report, the lowest score for the industry was 75 in 1995. Its highest score was 79, achieved in 1999 through 2001.

The survey was produced by the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business in partnership with the American Society of Quality and CFI Group. It is supported in part by ForeSee Results, an Ann Arbor, Mich., firm which measures client satisfaction with online companies.