Consumer and business trust in the insurance profession was improving ahead of the coronavirus pandemic according to the latest Chartered Insurance Institute Public Trust Index. The impact of disputes over coronavirus-related business interruption and travel claims will not however be clear until the next survey this summer.

The CII said that its latest survey of consumers and small and medium-sized businesses showed that overall, consumer and SME satisfaction with insurance increased slightly between 2019 and February 2020. The poll showed knowing exactly what an insurance policy covered and excluded was only ranked the seventh most important factor out of 50 for SMEs and the eighth most important factor out of 50 for consumers when buying insurance.

Loyalty, complaint handling, ease of doing business and assessing risk individually was ranked by SMEs as more important when buying and renewing insurance. For consumers, loyalty, speed of claims, price and complaints handling were ranked as more important.

Matt Connell, CII director of policy and public affairs, commented that “in light of headlines relating to travel and business interruption insurance and the nation’s experience of making claims as a result of the coronavirus it will be interesting to see how consumers’ and SME’s confidence that policies will pay out for risks that are relevant to them will be affected by their experiences with coronavirus.“

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