Measuring the effectiveness of intermediary loyalty programmes in the motor insurance industry: loyal versus non-loyal customers

Purpose - The insurance industry has not been able to effectively retain its customers and struggles to establish and maintain long-lasting relationships with them. The purpose of this paper is thus to identify the main factors that explain the cancellation of motor insurance policies by individual customers, considering the influence of intermediaries on their decisions. Design/methodology/approach - The data used in this research is based on a sample of 3,500 insurance policies that lapsed during the period of analysis between January and July 2017, against another sample of 3,500 policies that did not lapse, from a major insurance company in Portugal. Binary logistic regression was used for data analysis, using IBM SPSS software. Findings - Aggressive tactics by insurance companies for customer acquisition may induce the cancellation of insurance policies. More valuable customers, the policies with higher premiums and recent claims, as well as the ancillary intermediaries and agents, are determinants of insurance cancellation. Conversely, the payment of policies by direct debit and without instalments reduces the probability of cancellations. Research limitations/implications - The main limitation of this study is the restriction on data access. Insurance companies are significantly resistant to sharing their customer data – including with academic researchers – even in an anonymised form. Practical implications - The paper highlights internal and external practices of insurance companies that should be reformulated to significantly improve their performance regarding product cancellation, related to customer information management, mistrust behaviours related to stakeholders and new value propositions that deepen the relationships with intermediaries. Originality/value - This research developed a framework with which to identify the factors that are mainly associated with motor insurance cancellation and to predict its likelihood. 研究目的 - 保險業一向未能有效地留住客戶，故業內不斷努力建立並維繫與客戶長久的關係。因此、本文擬確定個人客戶終止其汽車保單的因素；研究過程中、會考慮中介人對客戶作有關決定的影響 。 研究的設計/方法/理念 - 本研究所使用的數據、為基於一個涵蓋3500份期滿終止保單的樣本、並以之與另一涵蓋3500份沒有終止保單的樣本相比，樣本均來自葡萄牙一家大型保險公司。期滿終止保單之樣本、乃於2017年1月至同年7月這個研究進行期間内期滿終止的。研究使用了二元羅吉斯迴歸來分析數據，並應用了IBM SPSS 數據分析軟件。 研究結果 - 保險公司為贏得客戶所採用的積極進取策略可能導致客戶終止其保單。保單終止的決定因素包括更多有價值的客戶、保險費較高的保單、最近的索賠和輔助的中介及代理。反之，以自動扣帳方式及以非分期付款形式繳付保單則會減低終止保單的機會。 研究的原創性/價值 - 本研究發展了一個框架、以確定與客戶終止其保單有關聯的主要因素，並預計客戶終止保單的可能性。本文亦強調了保險公司須重新制定其內部與外部的做法，以能大幅改善其與產品取消有關的績效，而這些產品取消涉及客戶信息管理、與持份者有關的不信任行為、以及能深化與中介人之關係的新價值主張。