The Fairer Finance Trust in Insurance Index - Spring 2025

How much do the public trust their insurance providers?

At Fairer Finance, we’ve been tracking public attitudes to insurance providers for 10 years. Every six months we poll 10,000 customers through our partner Opinium, asking them:

‘Based on everything you know about this insurer, to what extent would you agree or disagree with the following statement - “I trust (name of their insurer)”’. 

We convert these responses into a trust score¹ for each brand in each sector. We use these scores to track the public’s trust in insurers through our Trust in Insurance Index. We subtract the negative responses from positive ones and double-weight the most positive and negative responses. This gives a single number to measure trust and puts more weight on strong opinions.

The Autumn 2024 Index had trust scores leveling off but our most recent edition (Spring 2025) shows that trust in insurers has fallen back to levels last seen in Autumn 2021. 

This points to a longer term decline in the public's trust in insurance providers that started in 2023, after six years of consistent improvement from 2017 - 2022. 

Research by Consumer Intelligence has shown that car insurance premiums fell significantly in recent months after two years of large increases. Home insurance premiums have also started to come down although not as quickly. These positive price changes haven’t carried through to increased trust scores, so what is driving the decline of consumer trust? 

Who trusts insurance providers? 

People who made a claim

One question we ask customers is if they have made a claim in the past three years. The results have consistently shown that trust scores are significantly higher for customers that have made a claim. This is perhaps unsurprising as most insurers do a decent job with handling claims and customers that have claimed will clearly see the value of the provider. Our data supports this, in home insurance 76% of customers that had made a claim in the past 3 years responded that they were either very or fairly satisfied with the value of the product. For customers that hadn’t made a claim the number was 69%. 

The average trust score of customers who have made a claim has stayed fairly consistent across the insurance industry in the past year. Car insurance customers who have claimed are slightly less trusting now compared with a year ago but pet, travel and home insurance customers are slightly more so. 

In contrast to this, insurance customers who haven’t made a claim are on average less trusting now than they were a year ago. Pet insurance has seen the largest fall in trust scores, dropping 1.4pp with customers who haven’t claimed. Pet insurance premiums have continued rising and customers who haven’t had to claim might be feeling more frustrated at the cost. 

Sales channel

Customers who bought insurance policies through an advisor or broker are consistently more trusting than those who purchased directly from the provider, and those who purchased direct are more trusting than those who purchased through a comparison site. 

Intuitively it makes sense that people who purchased their policy through an advisor or broker are more trusting of their insurance provider. They had more support in finding a policy so a higher level of trust follows. 

There are many possible reasons for the difference in trust between those who purchased direct and those through a comparison site. 

First, there could be a difference in the demographics of those who choose different sales channels. Our data shows that wealthier people, as well as those with higher financial confidence are consistently more trusting of their insurance providers. Comparison sites display policies based on the cost to the consumer, this could be attracting a higher proportion of less affluent  customers looking to save money. 

Second, people who choose to buy directly from the provider may do so because they already trust that provider. People purchasing through a comparison site are less likely to choose a provider based on their reputation. 

Third, people buying directly might do so because they believe that they have a better understanding of what they need from an insurance provider. This could lead to higher levels of trust as they believe that they’ve made a more informed decision. 

Comparison sites themselves could also be the reason. There might be issues with the process of purchasing insurance through a comparison site that lead customers to have lower levels of trust in their provider. Comparison sites could be recommending products that don’t fully meet customer’s needs because they were cheaper or potentially failing to disclose important product information. 

We can’t be certain what is causing the difference in trust between different sales channels and a multi-causal explanation is most likely. 

Which brands are most and least trusted? 

The claims satisfaction scores are strongly correlated with trust scores. In terms of trust scores, once again Bank of Scotland and NFU Mutual feature amongst the best providers in both car and home insurance, while esure sits near the bottom for trust in both of these sectors as well. 

In terms of the biggest changes in trust scores between Autumn 2024 and Spring 2025, Marshmallow, Geoffrey Insurance and By Miles stand out in car insurance with all of them improving their trust scores by more than 7p.p. In home insurance the biggest improvements went to First Direct, Sheila’s Wheels and RBS. On the negative end of changes, Age Co fell by 8p.p in home insurance and Elephant and Swiftcover both fell by 4.4p.p in car insurance. 

Trust and satisfaction in home insurance

We also ask customers how satisfied they are with their insurance provider. The percentage of customers giving positive responses to this question has remained fairly consistent in home insurance over the past three years, contrasting with four consecutive periods of declining trust scores. However, looking more closely at the responses we can see that the number of people responding that they are extremely satisfied with their home insurer has been declining.

Changing claims satisfaction

In our survey, we also ask customers who have made a claim in the past three years about their experience. We ask them how satisfied they were with the claims process and turn the results into a claims satisfaction score. We double-weight the extremely positive and negative responses to account for strong feelings. Across all the insurance sectors, claims satisfaction scores had been falling continuously from a peak in late 2017 until reaching a low point in Spring 2023. Since then there have been four periods of consistent improvement, albeit gradual and far below the claims satisfaction scores seen before 2020. 

Amongst all the insurers where we have a sample of at least 50 people who have made a claim, Bank of Scotland leads the way on claims satisfaction in both home and car insurance. NFU Mutual also performs well in both, coming 2nd in car insurance and 4th in home. At the other end of the claims satisfaction score table, Swinton and esure appear at or near the bottom in both home and car insurance. Interestingly, Privilege performs very well in car insurance (3rd) but sits in the bottom five for home insurance.

Claims satisfaction in home insurance

The results of our survey show that overall claims satisfaction is better in home insurance (52.56%) than travel insurance (49.19%), but worse than car (56.55%) and pet insurance (58.61%). 

Claim satisfaction scores in home insurance have remained fairly stable over the past three years, falling slightly from Autumn 2022 until Autumn 2023 and rising since then. This period followed around five years of continuous decline in claims satisfaction scores, from a peak of 68% in Autumn 2017. 

Interestingly, average claims satisfaction scores in home insurance have increased by nearly 1p.p between Autumn 2024 and Spring 2025, while trust scores fell about 0.5p.p. This suggests that home insurers are improving the claims experience, but other aspects of home insurance products, potentially price and excesses, are driving declining trust. 

Areas for customer experience improvement in home insurance

In our most recent survey, we asked home insurance customers to rate their provider across a range of features, from cover levels to customer service, value for money, and the quality of the app or website.

The features with the highest levels of customer satisfaction are the quality of phone customer service, the level of cover and how easy it is to manage a policy. Each of these different factors had a strong net customer satisfaction score, suggesting when these parts of the experience go well, customers are more likely to be happy with their insurer overall. 

While many home insurance providers are getting these essentials right, there are always areas for improvement. Three important areas where satisfaction is lower are fees & charges, communications, and perceived value for money. 

Many customers still feel out of touch when it really matters. Communications received an overall satisfaction score of just 72.8%. Emails, letters and app notifications need to do more than inform - they must engage customers and clarify important information. Poor communication can erode both satisfaction and trust.

Which travel insurance providers are most trusted? 

Since the Autumn 2018 Index, trust in travel insurance has consistently been lower than the other three big insurance sectors. Spring 2025 also showed a decline in travel insurance trust scores, although this fall wasn’t as large as that seen in other sectors. 

Looking in detail at the 10 largest brands by sample size in the Index, we can see that Saga and Post Office stand out as brands that have improved on an already high trust score for the sector. Aviva and AA still scored very well but saw a large drop from Autumn 2024 to Spring 2025. 

So what is driving declining trust scores in travel insurance? Since Autumn 2024 we’ve asked respondents how satisfied they are with a number of product features, including the price, value for money, amount of cover and customer service, amongst others. The overall level of satisfaction, measured by the net percentage of positive responses, has fallen for price, value and customer service in travel insurance. Although satisfaction with the level of cover has remained steady between Autumn 2024 and Spring 2025. 

This suggests that rising prices are harming customers' perceptions of value in travel insurance, and potentially driving a decrease in consumer trust. As shown below, customer satisfaction with value for money fell for all of the 10 largest brands in travel insurance between Autumn 2024 and Spring 2025. 

Satisfaction with the overall customer service provided by brands has also fallen in travel insurance. Unlike with perceptions of value there are some exceptions in the 10 largest brands, with Coverwise and Saga both increasing the percentage of positive respondents. Some of the most significant falls have come from AA and Tesco Insurance. Both of these providers had very high levels of satisfaction with customer service so the large fall has still left them outperforming most travel insurance providers. 

Trust scores also fell quite significantly for AA. For a company of its size,  brand recognition and reputation is a key reason consumers choose them over other providers. Our data shows that 33% of customers chose AA because of its reputation, compared to 21% that chose them because it was the cheapest option. Falling levels of satisfaction with customer service could harm their reputation with consumers if it continues, and lead to further drops in trust. 

Notable exceptions

Despite the overall picture of declining trust in insurance there are some brands that continue to improve. Although trust in its travel insurance fell slightly, Tesco Insurance saw a large improvement for levels of trust in both car and pet insurance. Levels of satisfaction with overall customer service and price have both increased significantly in these two sectors for Tesco Insurance. 

Saga has a similar story, in Autumn 2024 it had the highest levels of trust amongst the 10 largest providers in home insurance, and was close to the top in travel insurance. Despite most providers showing declining trust in Spring 2025, Saga saw strong improvements to its trust score in both home and travel, leaving it clear at the top of the 10 largest providers in both sectors. It looks like improvements in satisfaction with customer service are part of the reason, as both of these sectors saw large improvements in this area. Satisfaction with the price of policies also improved for Saga in home insurance, although this did fall slightly in travel insurance. 

Implications

Premiums have continued to rise in the travel and pet insurance sectors and this is likely a factor in declining trust. However, price isn’t everything, and despite premiums starting to drop trust has still fallen in car and home insurance. 

Customer service, claims experience and communications are also drivers of trust and improving on these could help shore up customer trust, even with rising premiums. In travel insurance, the sector with the lowest levels of trust, time and (again we see) Ombudsman complaints caused by consumers not understanding their cover. Whether the insurer was within their rights to deny a claim under certain conditions is less important than the fact that many customers don’t understand what these conditions are. Insurers need to do better at explaining what they do and don’t cover. If they can do this, and premiums continue to stabilise or reduce, then we should see trust levels start to rise again.

¹ The question has the following options: "strongly agree", "agree", "neither agree nor disagree", "disagree" and "strongly disagree". The trust index score is calculated using the following formula: ((% answering strongly agree x 2) + (% answering agree) + (% answering disagree x -1) + (% answering strongly disagree x -2))/ 2. We use this formula to subtract those who distrust a provider from those who trust them, to give additional weight to those answering strongly agree and strongly disagree, and to create a single score to compare sectors and track change over time.