Bank of Russia to rank insurers based on complaints
This year, the Bank of Russia intends to begin publishing a quarterly ranking of insurers based on reasonable complaints it receives. The basis for scoring will be one thousand property insurance contracts or one thousand policyholders (in the case of personal insurance). A complaint is classified as reasonable if it was confirmed that consumer rights were indeed infringed.
‘In a way, this ranking will to a degree show the quality of an insurance company’s customer interaction practice’, said Sergey Shvetsov, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Russia. ‘In our view, this ranking could become a benchmark against which to evaluate customer satisfaction, as well as a working warning sign for insurers themselves, helping them enhance their business models of customer interaction.’
The ranking will cover all active insurance companies excluding those providing only life insurance and small insurers with fewer than 20 thousand customers.
This practice of disclosing information important for consumers has gained global acceptance and received a favourable opinion on the part of financial market players.
The Bank of Russia highlights full process transparency for the insurer community. Companies will be given at least three months’ notice of the ranking publication date and informed about the scoring methodology. Each insurer will receive information on its calculated scoring to be used in the ranking so that it can have a preliminary discussion with the regulator.
The Bank of Russia intends to post the ranking methodology on its website concurrently with the ranking.