I am often asked who the ‘best’ insurers are? I try to dodge that question because the answer requires a detailed analysis of what one is looking for. When Alice in Lewis Carroll’s stories asks which way she should go, the Cheshire Cat wisely replies, “That depends upon where you want to get to.” Insurer selection, however, would have flummoxed the Cheshire Cat because in insurance, even if you know where you want to get to, it is hard to get the data that helps you find your way.
Let’s say that you want an insurer who has the best claims record. For that you must know the claim settlement rates by product, claim payment times, claim complaints, extent of litigation, who wins the legal cases and how often the insurer pays interest on late claim payment. Some of this information is available but much of it is not, or is available in aggregate form. For example, you can get overall claim settlement rates but these are not published by product. Details of litigation are not available though I’m sure an enterprising analyst could go to all the district, state, consumer and ombudsman courts to put this together. There are other relevant areas where no information is available. For example, in the quality of policy placement. This is an important consideration because every single insurance buyer is impacted. The requirement here is to measure items such as clarity of coverage, error-free policy contracts and timely endorsements, but there is no public information on these.
