This article originally appeared in Best's Review (subscription required)

Customer loyalty has been tough to come by in the insurance industry, especially for life insurers that traditionally have far fewer interactions with customers than, say, retail banks.

Yet, in most countries, for both the life and the property/casualty sectors, one or two insurance carriers manage to excel in earning their customers' passion and advocacy.

Some of these loyalty leaders are doing so in part by fusing digital and physical channels into a seamless experience that pleases customers--what we call a "digical" transformation.

Bain & Company's latest global customer survey shows while customers are using online and mobile channels more frequently for their interactions with insurers, most customers still demand phone or in-person channels for purchases, advice and other interactions.

Why dwell on loyalty? Because it improves a carrier's economics. Customers who are loyal promoters of their insurers stay longer, buy more, recommend the company to friends and family, and usually cost less to serve--with the mix of these forces dependent on the particular market and type of insurance. In the United States, for instance, Bain analysis shows a promoter's lifetime value is worth, on average, nearly seven times that of a customer who's a detractor of the carrier, and two to three times that of a passive customer.

Bain's new survey of 158,422 consumers in 18 countries was conducted online through Research Now for the great majority of respondents and Survey Sampling International for additional respondents in Asia. The survey measures loyalty by calculating the Net Promoter Score for each insurance company, derived from responses to this question: On a zero-to-10 scale, how likely are you to recommend your insurer to a friend or a colleague? Based on the scores they give, respondents are classified as promoters (9-10), passives (7-8) or detractors (0-6). NPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors.

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