Survey spotlights the direct versus intermediated insurance divide

CEI 2025 forces a rethink at the broker level

Consumers love polls or surveys to help them choose between leading brands, or to confirm their preferred relationships with product or service providers. In the local context, readers lap up the likes of the Sunday Times’ GenNext Coolest Brand survey or the more traditional Brand Africa 100, run in Business Day, to see which bank, fashion outlet, fast food restaurant or retailer stand out from the crowd. 

Because benchmarks matter

In financial services, where promises are often only tested when something goes wrong, these benchmarks matter even more. The University of Pretoria’s latest Customer Experience Index (CEI) applies a lens to South Africa’s short-term insurance market, revealing where execution is strengthening, where gaps persist and which insurers are quietly setting the pace. Today, FAnews shares the findings of this survey, with some minor tweaks and comments. We have preceded most of these with a “PS” for clarity. 

The 2025 CEI for short-term insurers provides a benchmark of how domestic insurers are performing across all customer touchpoints. The research highlights that while some insurers, such as Auto & General, are excelling in areas like problem resolution, contact centres and digital services, the sector still faces challenges, including inconsistent issue resolution and functional execution gaps. Shortcomings in these areas impact how customers perceive value and trust. 

Drawing on interviews with thousands of consumers, the CEI findings reveal both the leading performers and opportunities for improvement, particularly in consistently delivering the basics and converting customer goodwill into loyalty and advocacy. For 2025, the CEI for the Short-Term Insurance Industry came in at 69.5, placing it behind banking (73.0) and life insurance (74.1), but slightly ahead of medical schemes (68.8), according to the 2025. PS, the medical schemes result will not surprise FAnews readers, given our recent coverage of the segment. 

Unresolved customer problems

The results, compiled by Professor Adré Schreuder, Head of the Industry Chair in Customer Experience at the University of Pretoria (UP), are based on a national sample of 6384 consumers across product and customer touchpoints. They show an industry that sits firmly in the middle of South Africa’s financial services landscape, performing well on some fundamentals, but still challenged by unresolved customer problems. 

Those of you who spend time on LinkedIn and other social media will no doubt agree, these channels are awash with unhappy financial services consumers ‘venting’ their frustrations. “Short-term insurance is a highly contested industry with sophisticated brands investing heavily in systems, people, training and processes,” Schreuder said. He said the data showed that insurers have made significant strides in preventing problems and resolving complaints. On the flipside, inconsistency in resolving issues when things go wrong continues to have an outsized impact on customer experience and long-term loyalty. 

PS, as the author of a comprehensive guide on South Africa’s short-term insurance sector, your writer can confirm strong competition from consumer-facing short-term insurers, especially in the commoditised (price sensitive) market for motor vehicle cover. And recent digital entrants, typically linked to strong traditional brands, have upped the ante in recent years. 

The stand-out brands

The 2025 CEI assessed customer experience across a broad cross-section of South Africa’s short-term insurance market, including 1st for Women, Auto & General, Budget Insurance, Dial Direct, Discovery Insure, MiWay, Old Mutual Insure (OMI), OUTsurance, Santam and Virseker. As an interesting aside, five of these brands sit under the Telesure Holdings umbrella, while MiWay is a division of Santam. 

The standout performer in the 2025 benchmark was Auto & General, which emerged as the overall industry leader across the CEI model with a score of 73.7. This performance was supported by strong results across the quality of experience, value of experience, satisfaction, loyalty and problem resolution metrics. Second place overall was shared by Budget and Virseker, followed by Dial Direct and 1st for Women, signalling the strength of the direct-to-customer or non-intermediated segment. 

“We have not often seen this degree of separation between the leading brand and the industry average,” Schreuder said. “Auto & General has attributed this performance to the tangible value of their customer-obsessed approach; one that prioritises operational excellence, builds trust, and delivers measurable impact across all customer touchpoints.” 

FAnews would like to add a couple of caveats here, by pointing out that direct insurers have a longstanding ‘edge’ in the commoditised personal lines space, and that the likes of Auto & General, Discovery Insure, OMI and Santam all place high value on the intermediated distribution channel, even in the personal lines sub-class. 

How do differentiated personal lines

Beyond overall rankings, the index also provides insight into where insurers are differentiating themselves across specific parts of the customer journey. 

Dial Direct stood out as product category winner, with customers responding positively to the flexibility and simplicity of its offering. The brand also featured strongly on digital channels, sharing top digital performance with Budget. Auto & General’s lead was most evident in its contact centre performance, which it states reflects the impact of a customer-led culture designed to empower staff with the tools to listen deeply, adapt quickly and connect authentically. 

Among broker-led insurers, Discovery and MiWay delivered the strongest broker channel experience, cementing their position in the intermediated segment. “Intermediated insurers operate under very different service and cost dynamics because of broker channels,” Schreuder noted. “As the market evolves, separating these benchmarks will give insurers and customers a clearer picture of who is genuinely delivering value.” 

Future editions of the CEI are therefore likely to introduce separate benchmark categories for intermediated and non-intermediated insurers. FAnews welcomes this as a noteworthy development that will likely improve customer experience measurement. 

Resolution before the Ombud steps in

At an industry level, only 7% of customers experienced a problem with short-term insurers, well below the 10% international best-practice benchmark. Furthermore, 60% of issues were resolved to customers’ expectations, outperforming the global benchmark of 50%. However, 27% were only somewhat resolved, while 13% remained completely unresolved. “Ideally, unresolved issues should sit below 5%,” Schreuder said. “Anything above 10% creates a pool of upset customers, and those cases often escalate to the Ombudsman.” 

In terms of what customers complained about most, 72% of problems related to functional performance and service delivery, with speed and accuracy as dominant drivers. “Nearly half of all complaints came down to how quickly something was handled, and whether it was done correctly the first time, pointing to basic execution failures,” he explained. Ironically, the same functional performance factors are also the single biggest drivers of loyalty when delivered well. 

Converting intent to action

Despite these execution gaps, CEI 2025 shows that short-term insurers are converting customer goodwill into advocacy more effectively than other financial services sectors. In 2025, 41% of customers were classified as promoters based on the strength of their likelihood to recommend their insurer. Some 28% further reported actually recommending their insurer, resulting in an Intention-Behaviour (IB) Ratio of 68%, well ahead of medical schemes (60%), banking (42%) and life insurance (33%). 

Interestingly, some brands with lower Net Promoter Score (NPS) achieved high intent-to-action ratios above 70%, including OUTsurance and OMI. By contrast, Auto & General achieved the highest Net Promoter Score of 33 but a lower conversion rate. According to Schreuder, this reflects the growing practice of post-interaction nudging, where customers are directed to platforms such as HelloPeter to share positive reviews immediately after service engagements. 

TCF will prevail

Overall, the 2025 CEI shows a short-term insurance industry that has strengthened its customer experience fundamentals, but one where execution gaps still undermine trust. “The takeaway for the industry is that customer experience depends on reliably delivering the basics, especially when something goes wrong,” Schreuder concluded. “Resolving issues well, and consistently, is what ultimately protects trust and builds loyalty.” And to wrap from FAnews’ side, Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) cures most ills. 

Writer’s thoughts:

The 2025 Customer Experience Index reveals useful insights into consumer interactions with short-term insurance brands. Do local consumers understand the nuances between direct and intermediated insurance distribution? Please comment below, interact with us on X at @fanews_online or email us your thoughts [email protected].

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