Small business insurance customer satisfaction levels took a hit during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and have remained low over the past couple of years. But according to the recently-released J.D. Power 2022 US Small Commercial Insurance Study, overall small business customer satisfaction has risen 13 points (on a 1,000-point scale) to 842 – just two points lower than its pre-pandemic high of 844 in 2019.
However, it also found that the smallest of small businesses feel less satisfied with their insurers. Small businesses in the micro category (those with fewer than five employees) had a lower satisfaction score (826) than medium-size (841) and larger (852) small businesses.
Among small business insurers, State Farm ranked the highest in overall customer satisfaction with a score of 856. The insurer is followed by Chubb (855) and Nationwide (854).
“It’s noteworthy that we’re seeing increases in satisfaction across all factors—including price—at a time when 30% of small business customers have experienced an insurance premium increase,” said J.D. Power senior director of global insurance intelligence Stephen Crewdson. “That’s the highest proportion of customers experiencing price increases that we’ve seen in the past eight years.”
Crewdson added that insurers that notify their small business customers in advance of a price increase and proactively work with them to mitigate the financial impacts of those increases have found that it is possible to “drive strong customer engagement and high levels of customer satisfaction”, despite a tough economic environment.
It was observed that customer satisfaction with small business insurance policy pricing rose three points this year, despite 30% of small businesses reporting a premium increase.
Read more: Revealed – how satisfied are US customers with their insurers?
Interestingly, another previous report by J.D. Power found that overall customer satisfaction with insurers’ digital offerings declined this year, despite insurers’ investing heavily into things like customer-facing websites and mobile apps. This decline was attributed to rising insurance prices.
