Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction in Kerala’s General Insurance Sector

Abstract

The study examined customer satisfaction among customers of public- and private-sector general insurance companies in Kerala and assessed the role of service quality in predicting customer satisfaction. A descriptive and analytical research design was adopted, and primary data were collected through a structured questionnaire from 200 general insurance customers, comprising 100 public-sector and 100 private-sector customers. The data were analysed using EDUSTAT with independent-samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, Tukey post-hoc test, Pearson correlation, and regression analysis. The results revealed that private-sector customers had significantly higher customer satisfaction than public-sector customers. Customer satisfaction differed significantly according to monthly family income and area of residence, whereas no significant differences were observed according to gender, age, educational qualification, or occupation. Service quality exhibited a strong positive relationship with customer satisfaction and emerged as a significant predictor, explaining 69.6 per cent of the variance in customer satisfaction. The findings emphasise the importance of service quality in strengthening customer satisfaction and indicate the need for insurers, particularly public-sector companies, to improve responsiveness, accessibility, communication, transparency, and customer-oriented service delivery.