Have you got the NPS edge or are you falling behind your peers in the insurance industry? As part of our latest round of NPS benchmarking for the insurance industry, we asked customers why they gave the score they did and analysed their responses to find the top, most commonly cited reasons for giving a good or bad Net Promoter Score.
To see how your Net Promoter Score compares to the rest of your industry, download the NPS Industry Benchmarks for New Zealand. These benchmarks are updated every year and contain the latest NPS benchmarks for:
- Car insurance
- Contents insurance
- Health/medical insurance
- Home insurance
- Life/trauma insurance
- Pet insurance
- Travel insurance
- Mortgage/income protection
- Insurance brokers.
Looking for more general information? Check out our blog on What is a good NPS score.
What if my score is below average?
Receiving a poor Net Promoter Score isn't always a reflection on the quality of your business. Low scores tend to translate to one or two especially salient issues that are affecting your clients. Resolve these and follow up with detractors, and your score will improve.
In 2025, the top reasons that led to a customer giving an insurer a detractor result were:
- Pricing/costs (34%) – with expensive premiums (58%) and price increases (6%) being the two most common sub-themes for a customer being a detractor.
- Customer service (4%) – with detractors saying a lack of personal contact and/or service not being helpful.
- Ease of process/simplicity (4%) – customers found it hard/difficult to make a claim and navigate the process.
Your business may have unique issues that are not on this list. Your NPS survey responses will have more actionable insights direct from your customers.
Read more: 6 ways to raise your survey response rate
How to achieve a better NPS as an insurer
The key to improving your NPS in the insurance industry is much the same as any other: listening to your customers, taking their feedback on board and instigating change to fix those weaknesses and leverage your strengths.
Poor communication may prompt a procedure review, complaints of expensive premiums might require an update of your pricing or product structures, and claim acceptance issues could be alleviated by policy wording that is more clear. It all depends on what your customers want and need.
You can uncover the specifics of what you need to improve in your NPS commentary. The survey results are designed to help inform your strategy and direct your business towards positive change.
In 2025, the top reasons that customers gave insurers a promoter score was:
- Pricing/costs (29%) – with comments made around being affordable (25%), followed by competitive rates/prices (16%).
- Customer Service (17%) – particularly with insurers being helpful (25%) and friendly (11%).
- Ease of doing business/low effort (15%) – the common theme here was these insurers were easy to deal with and required low effort from the customer.
- Trust/brand (14%) – customers who perceived their insurers as trustworthy, reputable and reliable.
Summary
While meeting the benchmark for your industry is a good start, remember that not all of your competition will be just average. If you want to truly succeed, you need to reach for something a lot higher than only meeting the bar.
Here is some further reading to continue your journey towards world-class NPS:
- Grow your business with NPS [free guide]
- 5 tips to help you approach your most unhappy customers
- Using the Net Promoter Score to analyse customer comments and feedback surveys
- How to increase your Net Promoter Score in 5 easy steps.
To get up-to-date data on your industry benchmarks, download our latest NPS benchmarking reports for Australia and New Zealand.
