South Africa's life insurance and investment industries have performed strongly in the University of Pretoria's (UP) latest Customer Experience (CE) Index, with the investment sector outperforming international benchmarks and life insurance delivering a competitive result.
The inaugural investment benchmark, introduced in response to customer demand and the significant overlap between investment and life-insurance providers, provides new insights into how customers view their relationships with financial institutions beyond investment returns, measuring factors such as service quality, value, loyalty and overall customer experience.
“The investment industry is already familiar with indices based on financial performance in products such as unit trusts and retirement annuities, but this benchmark adds a different layer by evaluating the customer experience behind the relationship rather than returns alone,” he says.
The CE Index measures the full end-to-end customer experience consumers have with brands, products and service providers, looking beyond satisfaction or service-quality surveys to evaluate quality of experience, perceived value, problem resolution, satisfaction, loyalty, expectations and emotional response.
The investment industry is excellent at connecting with clients: The strongest performance in the investment category was from Allan Grey, which was declared the overall winner, achieving a score of 80 out of 100 – the highest brand rating in the study. Discovery Invest and Old Mutual shared the second position, while Liberty Invest, Momentum Wealth and Sanlam Wealth shared the third position.
The industry performed strongly in the CE Index model:
– Quality of experience reached 81.9, significantly above the industry international benchmark of 75 and showing strong customer engagement, service delivery and front-end interactions.
– Satisfaction scored 78.1, which shows that customers are generally satisfied after dealing with their investment providers.
– Loyalty stood at 76.6, which shows that the majority of customers are inclined to remain, although 23.4% may be open to churn.
– Experience value came in at 75.2, which is close to international benchmarks and shows that customers' sense of value remains a key area to strengthen against the 81.9 experience quality score.
The gap of 6.7 points between quality of experience and value of experience shows that investment providers are providing strong engagement but there is still a need to make that experience more valuable.
Customer Experience Matters
Schrader explains that investment benchmarks are particularly important because the industry typically judges itself on hard, quantitative measures such as returns, risk, fees, product structure and performance against financial targets, while clients also assess the relationship through clarity, confidence, accountability, responsiveness, assurance, competence and trust.
“The CE Index adds to the way clients understand the performance of investment providers,” he says. “This helps them see whether customers are staying because the relationship is really strong, or because growing the portfolio seems complicated, risky or poorly understood.”
The performance of the life-insurance industry depends on channel depth: In the life-insurance industry, Liberty and Old Mutual have won overall, while Discovery, Momentum and Sanlam are in second place. Absa Life won in the Life Products category, Old Mutual won in both the Broker/Adviser and Tied Agent Channel categories, and Discovery and Liberty shared wins in the Contact Center category.
The industry recorded a solid CE Index, which includes several statistics that shape the policyholder relationship:
– Quality of experience reached 79.9, indicating that policyholders generally value engagement, communication and service delivery positively when dealing with their insurers.
– Satisfaction came in at 75.9, meaning the industry is largely meeting policyholder expectations after direct brand interactions.
– Loyalty is at 73.6, which should be read through the long-term nature of life insurance, where customers may stick with the policy because the relationship is valued, but also because switching may be expensive, complicated or impractical.
– Value of Experience recorded at 73.4, making perceived value one of the clearest areas for improvement in a category where customers have valued premiums, policy benefits, administration and claims support for many years.
The gap of 6.5 points between quality of experience and value of experience shows that life insurers are providing strong engagement, but there is still a need to make that experience more valuable throughout the policyholder journey.
trust under pressure
Schrader says the channel results illustrate why life insurers need to manage customer experience across the entire operating model. “The strongest insurers are those that can adopt the same standards in advice, service, administration, claims communications and support throughout the life of the policy.”
Problem solving and advocacy reveal the true strength of relationships: Problem resolution was one of the clearest correlation tests in both benchmarks. While 29% of investment clients and 15% of life-insurance clients reported a problem, investment providers fully resolved 70% of problems and life insurers resolved 68%, with unresolved issues remaining low at 7% and 8%, respectively.
“These findings are particularly relevant in sectors built on long-term financial trust. When customers trust a provider with investments, retirement planning, security needs or future claims, the problem rarely feels like a simple service failure. This tests whether the institution can respond when the relationship is under pressure.”
Advocacy also has important commercial importance. In life insurance, 57.4% of new customers were added through recommendations or referrals, while 13.2% were added through sales efforts.
The CE Index's intention-to-behavior ratio revealed which brands were best at converting stated intention to recommend into actual recommendations. The investment industry recorded a 65.7% conversion rate, led by Discovery Invest at 75% and Allan Gray at 72.9%.
Life insurance recorded a fairly low industry ratio of 47.7%, possibly because life-insurance recommendations depend less on visible short-term performance and more on long-term confidence, policyholder confidence and claims experience, which customers can judge only years after taking out the policy. Absa Life achieved the strongest life-insurance ratio at 61.9%, followed by Old Mutual at 52.1%.
“The tough question for boards and executive teams becomes whether customer experience receives the same business discipline as product performance, pricing, distribution, advertising and sales. The figures show that trust is driving critical acquisition, because a trusted recommendation carries credibility that paid channels cannot easily match.
“The CE Index should therefore guide executives on where to focus in the coming year, considering customer experience as a direct driver of retention, advocacy and growth,” Schrader concluded.
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