Restoring trust in insurance brands: an insurer's point of view...
The banking and, to a lesser extent, insurance sectors have never fully recovered from the 2008 crisis in terms of image, and mistrust still dominates the minds of consumers. Interview with an expert: Emmanuel ChazaletHead of External Communications AG2R La Mondiale.
Adwise: Emmanuel, how do you feel about this lack of confidence on a day-to-day basis?
Emmanuel Chazalet: Trust is at the heart of the communication problems faced by players in our sector, especially when the risks insured are long-term, as is the case for AG2R LA MONDIALE.
The studies we have recently carried out on this issue highlight the deep mistrust that characterises the French people's relationship with their daily lives. This distrust is characterised on 3 levels.
Firstly, the relationship with administrations, organisations and companies is experienced as a succession of "small confrontations. Falling reimbursements, stagnating pensions, recurrent indexation of health insurance premiums, the complexity of finding answers to questions... these are all situations that encourage the French to adopt a posture of resistance and force them to be constantly vigilant. As a result, the perceived quality of products, services and relationships is constantly being called into question.
The 2007 crisis also profoundly altered the French public's perception of economic logic. The public now distinguishes between "speculative finance of the "economic financeThe two are antagonistic: the immediate profit of the former is opposed to the time required for the development of the latter. This antagonism gives rise to the idea of a "widespread conflict of interests. When a company, an institution or even a government acts, there is suspicion about its true purpose. This conflict makes the world seem less controllable, less predictable and less stable, fuelling the ethical crisis we have been experiencing for several years.
Finally, recent events such as the Greek debt crisis and Brexit have given the French the feeling that everything that fundamentally structures the world (economic players, institutions and even countries) can disappear overnight. As a result, there is growing concern about the sustainability of the French social model. This is particularly worrying in France, where the role and place of the State are fundamental, and where social protection is part of our national identity.
Adwise: How does a brand like AG2R LA MONDIALE respond?
Emmanuel Chazalet: Securing people and their assets means building a long-term relationship based on trust. So how can we build trust with our customers, our partners and the French people when they feel that society is dysfunctional, they are worried about the decline of social protection and they can no longer see themselves in the future?
The level of mistrust is such that it is no longer enough to focus solely on the values or performance of our offerings.
AG2R LA MONDIALE has a number of important assets and principles of action that address the causes of mistrust. For example, our legal nature exposes us less to the pressure of speculative finance. Our original form of governance, which combines paritarianism and mutualism, enables us to align the interests of the company and those of its policyholders ...
Adwise: Trust is often built through proximity. Do you have any initiatives in this area, and how can you recreate empathy with a brand like AG2R LA MONDIALE?
Emmanuel Chazalet: What we are building around our commitment to sport is contributing to this. I'm thinking in particular of Vivons Vélo, the health prevention programme based on cycling that we launched in 2015. It combines a useful mobile app, a community on social networks and friendly monthly events organised simultaneously in around fifteen towns and cities.
Over the last 5 years, we have also developed a number of community services in line with our business expertise, such as the one for family carers (aidonslesnotres.fr) and the one on retirement (preparonsmaretraite.fr). In each case, we aim to provide everyone with free, useful day-to-day services upstream of the commercial relationship, to increase the frequency and intensity of the relationship with the brand. It's a lever for proximity and empathy.
Tomorrow's trust will also come from the relationship we are able to offer and maintain with our customers. It will come increasingly from our ability to build, with each of them, the feeling that they are making the right choices for themselves and their loved ones. This will be one of the challenges facing the AG2R LA MONDIALE brand in the period ahead.
Emmanuel Chazalet, Head of External Communications, AG2R La Mondiale
