Home insurance Customer satisfaction

Customer experience is key when buying home insurance

Customer experience is key when it comes to choosing the best contents and buildings insurance policy. Between October 2010 and April 2011 we asked an online panel of 9,783 Which? members about their home insurance. Paying for a policy is one thing; how queries and claims get are dealt with is another.

Which? continues to survey members on a regular basis to establish their levels of overall customer and claims satisfaction. 

How to read the table

The table identifies the top insurers as ranked according to their customer satisfaction. Companies that achieve the highest scores are those that Which? readers are most likely to recommend to a friend or family member. 

Price is a factor (as you’re unlikely to recommend an insurer that's expensive and increases premiums year-on-year for no good reason), but ease of getting a quote is among the other important factors.

Clearly new entrants to the buildings insurance market or niche insurers won't have collated enough responses from our survey respondents, but many of the main insurers feature.

Home insurance customer satisfaction
Insurer	Ease of quote	Ease of purchase	Ease of contact	Staff	Customer score
NFU Mutual					83%
Frizzell					80%
John Lewis Insurance					78%
Hiscox					78%
LV=					74%
The Co-operative Insurance					74%
Ecclesiastical					73%
Age UK					70%
Marks and Spencer					70%
RIAS				-	69%
ING Direct					69%
Royal Bank of Scotland					67%
UIA Insurance					66%
Saga					66%
Insurance4retirement					66%
Castle Cover					62%
Direct Line					61%
Sheila's Wheels					60%
Prudential					60%
Cornhill Direct					59%
Natwest					59%
MORE TH>N					59%
Tesco Bank					59%
Endsleigh			-	-	59%
Churchill					58%
Barclays					58%
RSA					57%
HSBC					57%
esure					57%
Privilege					56%
Nationwide Building Society					56%
Swinton					56%
Sainsbury's Finance					56%
The AA					55%
Towergate Home and Protect					54%
Bank of Scotland					54%
Zurich					53%
Lloyds TSB					53%
Halifax					53%
Post Office					53%
Aviva					52%
Ageas	-	-	-	-	52%
Legal and General					52%
AXA					50%
Allianz	-	-	-	-	47%
Bradford & Bingley					47%
Budget Insurance Services					44%
Santander					41%

Table Notes

Ease of obtaining a quote, purchasing a policy, contacting the provider, how well you are treated by staff (customer service) and Customer score is based on an online survey of 12,038 Which? Connect community members in April and December 2011. Customer score is calculated using a combination of overall satisfaction and how likely members are to recommend the provider to a friend. '-' represents where we have insufficient sample size to generate a star rating.