How top-rated insurers manage reviews

It's fair to say insurance isn’t daily concern for most customers. But when something goes wrong – like a car accident, home emergency or health issue – it quickly becomes very important.

At these highly stressful times, customers won’t rely on price or policy features alone to make a decision. They need to decide whether they can actually trust an insurer to support them when it really matters.

This is where reviews are so powerful. Around 76% of consumers read reviews before choosing a financial product, while 60% say they’ve changed their mind about a purchase after reading customer feedback*.

In insurance, because decisions are emotional as well as financial, reputation is built on how insurers listen and learn from customer experiences. The highest performing insurers treat reviews as a valuable source of insight, using feedback to help shape how they design and deliver their service.

The best insurers build feedback into the customer journey

Leading insurers don’t wait for customers to decide to leave a review. Instead, they deliberately design feedback collection into moments that matter most, such as renewals and customer service interactions.

Claims experiences are especially important across all insurance lines. Customers are naturally worried and looking for reassurance that their provider will act fairly and quickly.

Let’s take pet insurance as an example. When an owner is sitting in a vet waiting room deciding whether to go ahead with treatment, these emotional experiences tend to have a bigger impact on long-term loyalty than price or product features alone. The same is true when a homeowner is dealing with flood damage, or a lorry driver is waiting for their claim to be approved so they can go back to work.

Many customers who have a poor experience won’t necessarily complain directly. Many will simply switch providers if they feel uncertain or unsupported. Reviews help capture that feedback while experiences are still fresh, helping insurers spot potential service issues early.

A score alone doesn’t tell the full story

Headline star ratings are great for visibility, but they don’t explain customer behaviour. Or what’s driving sentiment or where service improvements are needed.

Platforms like Smart Money People provide deeper behavioural insight than generic review sites. Each review captures 16+ financial services-specific data points, including perceptions of value for money, product understanding, and fair treatment. This helps insurers understand why sentiment is changing and where experiences are breaking down across the customer journey.

In financial services, where trust plays such an important role in purchasing decisions, that additional context is often what separates consistent top performers from the rest of the market. Especially when customers are choosing providers to protect something as important as their home or family pet.

Competitive advantage comes from understanding context

Speaking of the rest of the market, the strongest insurers don’t only focus on their own performance. They also track how they compare to competitors.

Customer expectations in financial services change quickly. A stable rating alone won’t be enough in the long-term if competitors are improving service experiences faster.

Benchmarking across competitors, sectors and products allows insurers to spot emerging trends early. Small improvements in areas like claims communication or policy clarity can quickly become meaningful competitive advantages.

With over 2.7 million reviews collected and more than a decade of data, Smart Money People provides wider market context. This helps insurers understand whether changes in performance are specific to their business, or part of broader shifts happening across the industry.

Make relevant experiences easy to find

Crucially, the highest-rated insurers also ensure their reviews are easy to find, rather than simply collecting them.

Specialist platforms like Smart Money People allow customers to filter reviews by product. That means customers researching pet, travel or home insurance can easily see feedback that is directly relevant to the cover they’re seeking.

When dealing with an urgent claim, the last thing someone needs is having to sift through hundreds of unrelated product reviews on a generic platform. Making the relevant information with product filtering is a simple way to build trust with customers.

Regulation has increased the value of customer insight

It’s also worth flagging that Consumer Duty has fundamentally increased the importance of customer feedback in financial services. Reviews can help pet insurers track whether customers understand their products, whether they feel policies offer fair value, and whether vulnerable customers are being treated appropriately.

Generalist review platforms are designed for sheer massive volume across multiple sectors. But specialist financial services platforms can provide relevance and regulatory insight. That distinction is becoming increasingly important.

Final thoughts

The highest-rated insurers deliberately build their reputation over time. They make sure they’re visible where customers are actively searching, use structured insight to understand what’s really driving customer behaviour, and consistently collect feedback at every stage of the customer journey.

In insurance, trust is built in moments of need. Reviews simply make those moments visible, and give insurers the insight to keep improving when it matters most.

*Smart Money People research, April 2025