Who are Zurich Insurance?
Although the company’s roots are said to go back to the 1800’s, the Zurich Insurance company was officially founded in 1965, and offers a range of insurance products on an individual, commercial and corporate level. Currently, Zurich Insurance South Africa has about 1000 employees and offices at various cities in South Africa. The company was formed following a long history of change and mergers between several South African companies with the most recent merger being between BAT financial services and “SA Eagle”, which resulted in the establishment of Zurich South Africa. SA Eagle has been part of the Zurich Insurance brand since 2007. Edwyn O’Neill is the current CEO of Zurich Insurance South Africa. Zurich Insurance in South Africa is a subsidiary of Zurich Insurance Group Limited, which is based in Switzerland. According to their website, the parent group employs approximately 60,000 people and has offices in over 170 countries (wow).
According to recent news from November, 2013, Zurich Insurance plans on investing up to $1.0 billion in green bonds in the aim of reducing the impact of climate change and helping communities cope with the effects of climate change – this plan, if followed through, would show the company’s commitment to social responsibility.
Where is Zurich Insurance located?
Zurich Insurance’s head office is at 15 Marshall Street Ferreirasdorp Johannesburg 2001. Their postal address is PO Box 61489 Marshalltown 2107. Additionally, they have branches in Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Nelspruit, and Port Elizabeth.
What services does Zurich Insurance offer?
Zurich Insurance offers a range of insurance options for both individuals and businesses. Some of these include farmers insurance, marine insurance, hospitality insurance, wineries insurance and more. The individual insurance or “personal insurance” options include travel insurance, car insurance / vehicle insurance and home insurance.
In terms of car insurance, Zurich Insurance offers comprehensive car insurance coverage (as further elaborated here below). Their website also states that they tailor make the insurance coverage to meet the needs of the customer.
Along with Zurich’s car insurance comes several other benefits, such as:
- replacement of the car if it is written off or stolen within the first year of first registration;
- Replacement of keys and locks up to R5 000;
- Standard car hire.
How user-friendly is the Zurich Insurance website?
Overall, Zurich Insurance presents a good website. When opening their homepage, you will find a clearly laid out website with lots of helpful menu options. This is initially inviting and makes you want to learn more about them as a potential customer. Once we began searching for information, we found that most areas were well explained and useful. For example, they have an extensive background on the history of themselves as a company. The one area we found a bit lacking was their information on car insurance. They provide a few sentences about their coverage and refer you to their brochure by clicking on a link. We discovered that even the brochure has minimal information regarding motor insurance coverage options which wasn’t very helpful were we really looking for insurance like the average visitor. This of course is something basic that should be improved. Being a company that has a lot of services, we did manage to get a sense of who Zurich Insurance is as a company, but their website did not help us gain much insight/information about the specific terms and benefits, especially in regards to their motor insurance plans. So this would definitely be something they should look into seeing how people want answers online and not just a cover page.
How to file a claim with Zurich Insurance
Click here to: File an insurance claim with Zurich Insurance and you will be transferred to their website where you fill in the relevant claim form. There are separate forms for each type of claim (for example, car theft, car accident claim and so on).
What are the customer reviews of Zurich Insurance?
In reviewing Zurich Insurance on hellopeter, they received a total of only 68 reports in the past year. Of those reports, only 9% were compliments, while a whopping 91% were complaints! That’s about 10 times more complaints than compliments! The highest percentage when looking at the nature of the complaints was in the “feedback/response” category indicating the company definitely needs to improve on responding to its customers online – whether it be on the various complaints websites, or preferably via a platform on their own website. While they did provide a response to some of the reports, there were some complaints that didn’t even receive a response from Zurich Insurance. Again, this seems to reflect the dissatisfaction the customers experienced. Overall, the customer reviews were significantly negative for Zurich Insurance, something that reflects badly on the company, even if not all the reports are true. If you experienced something different with them, comment about it here below.
Summary
Zurich Insurance is a company that offers a range of short-term insurance products. While their website presents organized and helpful background information, the one area we are most interested in – the various car insurance options – was lacking. If we combine this lack of information with the negative customer reviews, it is difficult to say that Zurich car insurance is one of the better choices to consider.
Based on the above, we advise that you keep shopping around (check out an extensive list of insurance company reviews), and get at least 2-3 online quotes (click here for One Car Insurance Quote, or click on the below banner for up to 9 car insurance quotes). You might also want to read up on how to find affordable car insurance.
Main subject: Zurich Insurance
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