In the final quarter of 2001, BSN Nederland (a leading Netherlands business school which provides a general MBA and also an insurance-specific MBA), IBM Nederland and QCi carried out CRM benchmark research at 27 insurance companies, using CMAT-R, the research version of CMAT. Each company was assessed in eight different CRM related areas against best practices in these areas. This provided insight into the performance of each of these companies and highlighted differences between companies in their approach to CRM and in their results.

The results in this chapter are based on 27 participants. The group included general/property and casualty insurance, life insurers and healthcare insurers. Of this group, 9 dealt directly with retail customers, 13 sold insurance primarily via independent intermediaries, and 5 had other companies as their customers. In the analysis no differentiation was made between general, life and healthcare insurers, since this differentiation was not always clear-cut and there were no significant differences between these types of company in their CRM performance. Interviewees were mostly commercial directors or marketing managers. Each of the participants received customized feedback, in which his or her scores were compared to the average scores of all other participants. In addition, the scores were explained qualitatively, and recommendations were made for the next steps.