India, April 9, 2025: Hansa Research has released its 5th edition of the Insurance CuES report that tracks the experience, perceptions, attitudes, and behaviour of consumers in India, with a particular focus on life insurance.

Based on customer experience, the report ranks the top life insurance companies in India and has captured feedback from more than 3600 customers across 13 life insurance brands in the country. The 2025 Life Insurance CuES report provides important insights that can help companies prioritize and better position their business strategies and investments in the year to come.

In a shift from 2024, the life insurance industry has witnessed a significant leap in customer experience, marking a notable departure from last year’s stagnation, particularly in communication, customer support, and the initial purchase and on boarding journey. Hansa Research’s latest Life Insurance CuES 2025 report reveals that customers are associating life insurance brands more positively, especially in aspects like ‘trust and transparency,’ ‘innovation,’ and being ‘customer-oriented.’ This improvement has resulted in a significant increase in the industry’s Net Promoter Score from 54% to 58%.

Over the past five years, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) for the insurance industry has seen a remarkable increase of 20 points, rising from 38% in 2021 to 58% in 2025. This improvement can be attributed to insurers effectively meeting customer expectations in key areas such as operational efficiency, transparency, and post-sales service support. Additionally, there has been a notable shift in customer expectations, evolving from mere transactional interactions to fostering deeper relationships with their insurers.

Furthermore, a significant trend observed over this five-year period is the narrowing gap in NPS between leading and lesser-performing brands. In 2021, the difference in NPS between the top quartile and the bottom quartile brands was 17 points; by 2025, this gap has decreased to just 10 points. This trend suggests an overall improvement in service quality across the industry and underscores the importance of continuous enhancements in customer engagement strategies. As brands strive to enhance their offerings, it is evident that companies are increasingly prioritizing customer satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately benefiting consumers with improved service experiences.

Sharing some insights on the Hansa Research, Life Insurance CuES report, Praveen Nijhara, CEO, Hansa Research said, “The Life Insurance companies have consistently demonstrated strong performance over the last five years. However, differentiation in customer experience is diminishing, making the next few years crucial for establishing brand leadership. Delivering experiences and products tailored to the diverse needs, preferences and communication styles of India's fragmented demographics especially customers in non-metros, millennials and women will drive leadership.” Key Highlights ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and Axis Max Life Insurance have achieved impressive Net Promoter Scores (NPS) of 65% and 64%, respectively, significantly exceeding the industry average of 58%. Both brands are recognized as innovators, delivering exceptional brand and customer experiences.

Tata AIA and Kotak Life Insurance have tied for the third spot alongside HDFC Life Insurance, displaying an improvement in their customer experience offerings.

SBI Life Insurance has also made significant strides improving its NPS, and ranking high on trust and affordability. Additionally, LIC, SBI Life Insurance and HDFC Life Insurance continue to lead in brand awareness among non-life policyholders.

Piyali Chatterjee, Executive Vice President, CX, Hansa Research said, "To thrive in the future, brands must focus on addressing financial literacy, behavioural biases, and simplifying product complexity. Success lies in aligning products with customer needs and profiles while delivering seamless, personalized experiences. Over recent years, customer expectations have shifted from purely transactional interactions to relationship-driven engagement—a trend that continues to strengthen and shape the industry's evolution." In 2025, five key trends emerge, which will play a fundamental role in shaping the industry.

1. Economic Influence on Financial Investment Decisions: Consumers are increasingly influenced by economic factors when making financial investments. However, concerns about lack of information and transparency, as well as the difficulty in understanding financial products, persist. Our findings from the study show that simple-to-understand products and plans are critical for both acquisition and customer retention. Infact, 40% of respondents (non-life policyholders) in the survey mentioned that they did not find it easy to understand the features, terms and conditions of life insurance product & policies.

2. Evolution of Life Insurance needs: While ensuring ‘financial protection for the family’ was the key motivator for purchasing life insurance among the current policyholders (34%), there is an increased focus on savings and retirement among the customers. Insurers need to start aligning their products to meet the evolving needs of the customers, especially with the impending demographic shift towards maturity in the near future in India. Brands can fine-tune their marketing and communication plan by targeting specific products towards existing customers. Infact, when asked about their primary reason for purchase, twice as many customers aged over 40yrs mentioned a need related to their children’s education.

3. Millennial Expectations: The millennial customer is emerging as the most ‘at risk’ in terms of brand stickiness and is more likely to explore alternative options. They prioritize experiences over brand reputation and rank aspects such as affordability, easy access, 24/7 customer support, frequent advisor engagement and seamless digital solutions for purchasing and managing their policies - high on their list of expectations.

4. What Women Want: Women are driving growth in the industry, highlighting the need for tailored products that emphasize affordability, seamless on boarding, and effective communication. Their need for interaction and engagement with the advisor before and after purchase is higher than that of men. Their product needs differ from those of men. While protection remains a key motivator, their needs gravitate largely towards ‘savings/ income for future/ retirement’ and ‘child plans/ savings safety net for your kids' future’.

5. Digital Services: Interestingly while digital services and support in life insurance continues its wide, spread adoption among customers especially those in Metros, its role as a differentiating factor between brands is reducing as it is becoming a standard expectation rather than a unique selling point. Brands need to move beyond using digital services and support options for efficiency and instead leverage it for building value for customers.

About NPS: Net Promoter Score (NPS) is used by many brands as a loyalty metric to measure the health of their customer relationships. A superlative consumer experience is a critical aspect driving the Net Promoter Score.

About Hansa Research Group: Hansa Research is the largest Indian Consumer Insights Provider who are in the business of insights and analytics for over 40 years having undertaken client assignments in over 100 countries. It is the first Indian insights and consulting company to acquire a US-based firm, GCR (formerly called Gartner Custom Research). The multi-national company headquartered in India has offices in Singapore, Germany, USA and Bangladesh.

Hansa Research Group is a part of R K SWAMY | HANSA Group of companies which are India’s leading multi-discipline, multi-location, marketing communications, and services groups, serving the needs of a wide array of companies globally.

Website: https://www.hansaresearch.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hansa-research-group/ (Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with NRDPL and PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.). PTI PWR PWR

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ICICI Prudential Life Insurance and Axis Max Life Insurance are at the Forefront of Customer Experience

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