Customer satisfaction survey - Claims & payments

In previous years we have committed to improving the scores for this section and have invested in making improvements in the product and service process for maturing customers and had achieved some success. However the current results are clearly framed by the disappointment felt by some customers as a result of their investment return.

The results do show that we need to improve our communication process and speed of payment. The latter is not a surprise, whilst our claim and maturity process is efficient, following other customer feedback, we are currently considering streamlining the actual payment process for policy proceeds. The lower scores for keeping you informed we suspect relate to client disappointment following reductions in final bonus rates over a 12 month period and given the sharp, unexpected and rapid decline in the market it was always going to be difficult to inform customers of the market falls on anything other than an after the event basis. However clearly we need to look again at our client communication about ongoing investment risk and will also look at product design solutions to attempt to reduce the impact of risk in the run up to maturity.