Trust, a somewhat esoteric notion of measuring, is the key driver of British consumer satisfaction when it comes to life insurance.

New research reveals the overall satisfaction of life insurance policyholders is primarily driven by their provider’s perceived trustworthiness.

Considering that trust is intangible and difficult to quantify, life insurance providers face a significant challenge to ensure their service levels are deemed trustworthy by their current clients as well as potential clients they hope to win in the future.

Mick Jagger famously sang of his desire but the inability to achieve a sense of “satisfaction”. Yet holders of life insurance products in the UK have been able to find some semblance of satisfaction.

The CoreData Research UK study of Britain’s life insurance sector reveals some customers can and do “get satisfaction” with a variety of reasoning behind these levels of satisfaction, which are also dependent on demographic and geographic factors.

The report outlines the satisfaction levels of people who have bought life insurance policies and dissects the key drivers behind these levels of satisfaction (or dissatisfaction).

In essence, it aims to reveal why people are satisfied with their life insurance company and what it is that their provider may offer or do differently that others may not?

Simply knowing your customer base is satisfied with the service delivered is heartening, but this knowledge does not help a business address any shortcomings in its service levels or understand why an offer (in terms of service) may be better or worse than that of a group’s peers.

Regression analysis revealed that trustworthiness is the largest driver of customer satisfaction, and exerts an influence of 36.6% on overall satisfaction.

The fact that this element has a major impact on customer satisfaction stimulates debate because the measurement of trustworthiness can be a somewhat tetchy subject. This is because it is not something that can be quantified. Trustworthiness and people’s perception of it are largely dictated by experience and thus often subjective.

This perception of trustworthiness is also easily shattered. If one feels betrayed by a life insurance company, then their trust in that institution quickly crumbles.

But although trustworthiness may be subjective, there are elements of a life insurance company’s behaviour that could enhance or detract from their customers’ perception of trustworthiness.

If a company does not overpromise and under-deliver or rather, if it lives up to its promises, then a customer’s perception of that institution’s trustworthiness may well improve.

Arguably, improving trust levels can be brought about by being close to the customer, gaining a keener understanding of what their needs and desires are and therefore seeking to earn and retain their trust.