Consumer satisfaction with insurance rises in latest public trust data

Overall consumer satisfaction with insurers rose to 85% in 2025Q2, up from 84% in the previous survey. Consumers said insurers had performed better across all nine survey themes, with larger improvements around loyalty (getting a fair deal), control over claims, and respect. However, consumers continue to believe that the performance of insurers with respect to fairness is much weaker than most of the other themes, meaning this remains a key area that they should be looking at to improve trust.

The key actions consumers said firms could take to build trust included:

• Offering discounts for customers who stay with the same company
• Recognising customer loyalty at renewal after a claim
• Ensuring premiums do not increase simply because a customer is no longer new
• Handling complaints in a professional and fair manner
• Ensuring customers feel risk is assessed on an individual basis, rather than using generic assumptions

The improvement in consumer satisfaction was broad based across motor, travel and buildings/contents insurance. The Index also looks at consumer responses by age, gender and ethnicity. The proportion of respondents aged 18-34 and aged 35-54 who said they were satisfied with all forms of insurance policy that they had purchased recently rose to the highest recorded levels since data collection began in 2019 (see Table 1 & Chart 1). In contrast, satisfaction among consumers aged 55+ returned to its lowest level (83%). Getting a fair deal is a particularly important theme for those aged 55 or older.

In general, SMEs reported less positive performance ratings compared to the previous wave, and overall satisfaction fell slightly, to 82%. SME’s identified several key areas that insurers should look to build trust:

• Answering SMEs’ questions quickly and clearly
• Offering discounts for SMEs who stay with the same company
• Ensuring policy documents are easy to read with little or no small print
• Assessing SMEs’ risk individually, rather than using generic assumptions
• Explaining policies clearly

Reflecting on the numbers, CII Group Policy & Public Affairs Director, Dr Matt Connell, said: “The CII’s Public Trust Index shows that consumers’ perceptions of how insurers are performing have improved in this latest survey. Perceptions of price walking have weighed heavily on consumer minds for some time, and we may be seeing early signs of a change. However, it is apparent from the data that there is still plenty of opportunity for insurers to show greater fairness to their existing customers. For example, insurers could turn what they ‘must do’ to comply with the FCA’s rules on price walking into an explicit customer guarantee – that they will never charge customers more at renewal than they would pay if they were a new customer. Insurers have a great chance to mend the damage to trust that has been caused by price walking – but first, they must make what they are doing much clearer to consumers.”

You can read more about the Public Trust Index data here, and in the August/September 2025 edition of The Journal.