Allianz’s Holmes on why trust in insurance must be earned

When something goes wrong, a customer’s confidence in their insurer should be instinctive. 

For too many, it’s not. 

That moment of doubt at the point of need does not reflect how our industry performs. It reflects how it’s perceived. And that gap is ours to close.

Earlier this year, we published our first Trust in Insurance Benchmark, surveying over 3,000 UK consumers and SME decision-makers to get an honest picture of where trust in our industry stands. 

The findings were both sobering and instructive.

Experience

When customers do claim, the experience is overwhelmingly positive: fair treatment, clear processes, reasonable outcomes. 

Nine in 10 say their claim was paid. People also trust their own insurer far more than they trust the industry. Both findings tell us that experience builds trust, but we can’t treat the claim as the only opportunity to earn it. 

Insurance is one of the few products where trust has to precede proof, making it uniquely difficult to build and something that must be earned deliberately, not left to the claim alone.

So what’s getting in the way? 

Our research points to complexity, uncertainty, and a lack of clarity about whether insurance will work for customers when it matters. 

Our job is to remove those barriers by being clearer about what’s covered and what isn’t, more transparent about how decisions are made, and more deliberate in ensuring that every interaction builds confidence rather than leaving room for doubt.

Confidence gap

SMEs illustrate our challenge clearly. 

Nine in 10 business leaders view insurance as fundamental to protecting their business, yet 62% worry their claim won’t be paid. This isn’t a knowledge gap, it’s a confidence gap. 

What they want is an industry that speaks plainly and understands the realities of running a business. 

The British Insurance Brokers' Association’s Ben the Broker campaign is a good example of the industry responding, humanising the role of the broker and showing that guidance works best when it’s personal and rooted in a relationship rather than a transaction.

Trust

We invest heavily in innovation and technical capability as an industry, and I believe that matters. But it isn’t what earns trust. Our research was clear on this: just 2% of customers said innovation builds trust, while the highest ranked driver was caring for their best interests. 

Trust comes down to behaviour, to whether customers feel we are on their side and will act with fairness, honesty, and speed when it matters most.

Addressing this will require a continued and collective focus across the sector. 

The Association of British Insurers’ 2026 to 2028 strategy reaffirms its commitment to improve people’s understanding and experience of insurance, and that collective effort matters because trust in our industry is a shared asset. It benefits all of us when it is strong and holds all of us back when it’s not.

Importantly, this isn’t something we need to wait for further regulation to drive forward. 

Consumer Duty has set a clear direction, but the principle behind it – treating customers with clarity, fairness, and genuine care – is something our industry should be pursuing on its own terms because it’s the right thing to do and because it works.

For Allianz, this benchmark is a long-term commitment, not a moment in time. It’s how we intend to hold ourselves accountable, continuing to listen, to measure, and to act on what we find. 

Trust is not something we can declare. It is something we must earn, consistently, visibly, and with the humility to accept that we are not there yet. 

Our industry delivers more than people believe. The challenge now is to make them believe it before they ever need to find out.