So, what’s up? Last year, we conducted a comparison analysis of the well known insurance companies in South Africa to determine which ones rated the “best” (See here: Best Insurance Company in SA for 2013). This had never been done before, and received a huge positive response from the public. As promised, and due to popular demand, this year we did the analysis again, to find out which insurance company is the ‘best’ for 2014. The research was done by utilizing the reports and feedback that each insurance company received on the review website Hellopeter.com during a 12 month period (from January, 2014 to December, 2014).
How we did the Research (skip this part if you just want the results):
The twitter version: We took the most known insurance companies in South-Africa, divided them into two groups (the smaller companies and the bigger ones) and then checked how many complaints each company received on Hellopeter.com in the 5 most common and important complaint categories. We then used a point system to determine which company was the best, but not before adding one more category: which company in each group received the most compliments. We then crunched the numbers, and voila…
The more detailed version (Actually quite interesting): After looking at the number of reports and total percentage of complaints/compliments that each insurance company received, we divided the companies into two groups: those with less than 500 reports (the ‘smaller’ companies) and those with more than 500 reports* (the ‘bigger’ companies).
* Although the amount of reports can’t scientifically prove that one company is bigger than the other, it is good general indication and the dividing of the groups helps provide a more accurate perspective of the results by not comparing the ‘bigger’ companies with the ‘smaller’ ones.
Then, we reviewed the specific nature of the complaints for each company comparing the 5 most popular ‘complaint’ categories (the categories with the most reports): “Billing/Accounts”, “Repairs/Servicing”, “Feedback/Response”, “Call Centre”, and “Breach of Contract.” In addition to these categories having the most reports, they also represent a critical aspect of customer service and one’s experience with an insurance company.
Then, within each of the 5 categories, we looked at which insurance companies had the least percentage of complaints. Based on that, we used a point system giving points to the top 5 companies in each category. The winning company in each category (the company with the lowest percentage of complaints) received 5 points, the second lowest 4 points and so on. In the event that two companies had the same amount of complaints in a specific category, and they were both in the top 5 positions, we assigned the same number of points to both of those companies.
Once we completed ranking the top 5 companies in each of the 5 categories, we then added one more criteria – the percentge of compliments each company received – and then gave the company with the most compliments 10 points, the second 9, all the way down to 1. Then we added up all the points from all the 6 categories and the companies with the highest amount of points in each group were declared the winners.
Disclaimer: Our main source of data is the hellopeter website, which is based on people’s reports. As such, we aknowledge that some of these reports could be fabricated, faked or funded by parties of interest (this of course has nothing to do with the Hellopeter website itself). We realize, therefore, that there is place for a margin of error in our conclusions. That said, it is important to note that influencing the reports on Hellopeter is not an easy task as the website requires you to give a valid e-mail address and phone number and companies sometimes contact you in order to address your complaint – this leads us to the conclusion that although the results may not be 100% scientific, they definitely serve as a good indication of which insurance companies are giving good service, and which still need to improve. Lastly, we further clarify that we do not support or endorse any of the insurance companies mentioned in this report even if some of them have or will advertise on our platform at some stage or other. We further guarentee that attempt to influence the results was not made by any of the insurance companies reviewed.
The Data:
The insurance companies that we reviewed, the total number of reports they received over the past 12 months, and the number and percentages of compliments/complaints:
Bar graph depicting the above table in an easier way to understand.
As you can see, more than 50% of the reports for each of the first 9 insurance companies listed (MiWay till Virgin Money Insurance) were compliments. King Price Insurance and Prime Meridian received between 40% and 50% complimentary reports, while the remaining 11 companies had no more than 30% of positive reports.
Another way of looking at this information is to see the percentage of complaints. So we did that as well (yes, just for you – 🙂 )
Although this primarily tells you the same information as the graph before, it is interesting to see how few complaints the first few insurance companies received and then see the bar graph grow. It is one thing to notice how many compliments a company receives, but another when you see the percentage of complaints.
We decided to look into the data more carefully to better determine how each company rates among their customers. In order to not compare apples and oranges we divided the companies into two groups (the ‘big’ companies and the ‘small’ companies’) based on the number of reports they received, as explained above. We then looked at the 5 categories of complaints we identified above and compared how each company did.
Note: while the majority of insurance companies remained in the same category as our original article last year, two companies did indeed switch groups: Hollard went from the ‘smaller company’ group to the ‘bigger’ one and Virgin Money Insurance, on the other hand, moved to the ‘smaller company’ group.
Results for the the ‘Smaller’ Insurance Companies (those with less than 500 reports):
The following graph shows the information from the above table more clearly:
Now let’s look at the same data for the “bigger” insurance companies (those with more than 500 reports):
The following graph shows the information from the above table more clearly:
Click to see the Final Results!
