NTUC Income has surpassed competition to rank as the most reputable company amongst life and general insurers in Singapore, according to a biennial poll of the public’s perception of the factors that shape the corporate reputation of firms in the country.
The 7th edition of the Corporate Reputation Survey was commissioned by communications consultancy Reputation Management Associates (RMA) and conducted by AntzWorkz Consultants, and ranked the reputations of banks, life insurers, general insurers, telcos and supermarkets locally, based on an index known as the Corporate Reputation Index (CRI), which ranges from 1 to 10.
In life insurance, NTUC Income showed the strongest improvement since 2013 when it was ranked fourth, with its CRI jumping from 4.31 to 5.54 in 2015. Competitors Prudential’s ranked remained unchanged at second whilst Great Eastern Life (GE) slid to third from first in 2013.
Similarly in general insurance, NTUC Income clinched top spot by a comfortable margin with a CRI of 6.92, ahead of AXA and AIG which were ranked second and third respectively.
Influential factors
The survey also revealed the most influential positive and negative factors that contributed to public perception of corporate reputation. Across both life and general insurance, trust, good customer service and competitive rates were considered the three most crucial positive factors, whilst mis-selling and non-payment of claims were the top-most turnoffs for life and general insurers respectively.
Overall insurers’ reputation still lags behind banks and retailers
Notwithstanding, more needs to be done by the insurance industry to improve its overall corporate reputation as poll results revealed that both life (6.5) and general (6.5) insurance sectors fell behind in mean ratings in comparison to the banking (7.3), supermarket (7.3) and telecommunications (7.0) industries.
RMA CEO John Lim said: “With data gathered over seven nation-wide surveys since 2005, the survey has found clear trends on what drives corporate reputation. Companies that build intimate relationships with their customers and foster trust and transparency accumulate substantial reputational capital. These two factors have consistently exerted top influence in past surveys and are likely to dominate, given that we are approaching business uncertainty and disruption as never before.”