Admitting that the personal insurance market is “dysfunctional,”
Aviva CEO Mark Wilson has vowed to introduce reforms to end the overcharging of loyal customers.
Speaking at Aviva’s annual meeting on Wednesday, Wilson said it was wrong to sharply increase loyal customers’ premiums at renewal, media reports say.
“There’s the broader problem of steep price rises when artificially low introductory discounts come to an end,” the Daily Mail quoted him as saying. “This means across the whole industry in the UK, when customers come to renew, they often get quoted more.”
According to the paper, Wilson promised to overhaul the way Aviva sells insurance to ensure that all customers would have the best prices. He urged other insurers to do the same thing.
“The market is broken. I don’t like it and neither do our customers,” Wilson said, as quoted by the Financial Times.
“This dysfunctional market is a problem for the whole industry. And it requires an industry-wide solution. But we aren’t waiting for that.”
Wilson told the publication that Aviva was “developing a product to reward loyalty by offering our best prices to existing customers.”
Wilson said the product will be launched later this year, but he gave no details of what it was.
The Aviva chief made his comments after the
Daily Mail ran an investigation into insurance overpricing and revealed stories of loyal customers who were supposedly ripped off by their insurers.
This prompted politicians to call for a new code of conduct for the industry and heavy fines for insurers who fail to justify huge annual price hikes.
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