‘Shop around for insurance’
AA Insurance chief executive Chris Curtin has been in the job for 20 years, making him among the longest serving chief execs in the country.
And he has a message for consumers: ‘‘Consumers need to play more of a part in making sure that insurance is affordable.’’
Under his leadership, the insurer, which is jointly owned by the AA and insurer Vero, has grown to a giant, pulling in $269.3 million in premiums for the car, house and contents insurance it sold direct in the 12 months to the end of June.
It’s also been named most trusted insurer by consumer research group Canstar Blue for the past five years, but Curtin believes car and home owners are not shopping around enough for their insurance.
It’s been a tough five years with a spike in house and contents insurance costs, largely a result of higher reinsurance costs following the Canterbury earthquakes, but Curtin does not see as much pricechecking and cover-comparing going on as he would like.
‘‘If more insurance consumers shopped around it would create more competitive tension and it ought to drive prices downward.’’
Shopping around was now easy with many insurers having online quote engines, though he realised comparing policies, which were not all identical, was not easy.
‘‘Don’t just shop on price because they are different,’’ he said.
Curtin said prices don’t go only one way – AA Insurance recently cut the price of its contents cover.
‘‘Premiums will go up, but we have to do more to manage that,’’ he said.
AA Insurance launched in 1994 with a staff of 50 and a ‘‘handful of customers’’, Curtin said. He joined it a year later.
Now it has a 22 per cent market share in car insurance, and more than 600 employees. It insures roughly one in 10 homes.
Curtin presides over one of the most trusted brands in New Zealand corporate landscape, while being in an industry whose image has suffered in the wake of the Canterbury earthquakes.
AA Insurance is 94 per cent of the way through claims, Curtin said. But he regrets the industry and the Earthquake Commission failed to recognise that such an event could happen, and plan adequately for it so people didn’t have to suffer under the complex and frustrating process of dealing with the EQC and their insurers.
Curtin said: ‘‘Our customer purpose is to eliminate stress and deliver certainty to people, and that whole system creates stress and creates uncertainty, so it is absolutely at odds with what we are trying to do.’’
The EQC system could be fixed, he said, and a government review was under way.
He’s also optimistic about the new ‘‘Fair Insurance Code’’ that comes into force in January. It’s a voluntary code that Insurance Council of New Zealand members agree to be covered by. It stopped short of banning general insurers from tearing up policies for innocent non-disclosure, but it will require insurers to act ‘‘reasonably’’ when deciding whether to tear up a policy.