Three of last year’s top five companies, Chubb Group, NLC Insurance Cos. and Progressive, were again ranked among the top five performers in the second company performance survey conducted by the Professional Insurance Agents of Connecticut Inc.
“Chubb Group and NLC ranked consistently strong, scoring among the top five companies on ten or more of the survey’s 16 questions, as did Royal & SunAlliance,” said the announcement.” Also scoring well were Hanover, Peerless and Progressive; they each ranked among the top performers on seven of the 16 items.” The bulletin noted that Hanover and Peerless were not included in last year’s survey.
“Last year Chubb Group, Middlesex Mutual Assurance Co., NLC, Progressive and Safeco were the top five ranking insurance companies, according to the independent agents who participated in the survey,” said the PIACT.
President Robert B. Gyle indicated that “The relationship between the agent and the insurance company is very important.” This survey gauges how agents perceive each company and where they think each company’s strength lies.”
The PIACT Company Relations Committee, headed by Nicholas Fanelli, CIC, CPCU, CLU, worked to identify various performance items that agents value in their companies. The survey asked PIACT members to rank 17 insurance companies in a number of different categories including products and pricing; treatment of agents; marketing support; technology; claims handling; service and underwriting.
“In a change from the previous year’s survey, this time agents were asked to rate most companies’ commercial lines and personal lines performance separately,” said the announcment. “The change responded to member suggestions for making the survey more useful, since many companies maintain significantly distinct commercial and personal lines operations, while agents may be active with a company for one but not the other.”
“Other companies included in the survey were: Great American Insurance Group; Kemper Insurance Cos.; MetLife Auto & Home; Middlesex Mutual; Ohio Casualty Group; OneBeacon; Patrons Mutual; Safeco; Travelers Property Casualty and Zurich North America. Companies were chosen based on the number of PIACT members representing them; however, specialty companies were not included this year,” said the PIACT. “The committee selected the performance items they deemed to be most crucial to PIACT’s members,” Fanelli indicated. “We believe the feedback received from this survey will help agents and companies understand each other better.”
The survey also selected the following companies as leaders in individual categories:
Products and pricing – Great American and Peerless
Treatment of Agents – NLC and Chubb
Marketing Support – Chubb and MetLife Auto & Home
Technology – The Hartford and Travelers
Claims Handling – Chubb and Royal & SunAlliance
Service – Chubb, NLC and Progressive
Underwriting – Chubb and NLC
“We saw a fair amount of consistency in companies’ rankings on similar items from year to year. That indicates to us two things,” Fanelli concluded. “First, it helps confirm the findings of our original survey; and second, good companies are consistent. We look forward to conducting this survey periodically to track agents’ opinions over time.”
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