What do consumers in Australia, Britain, US, the UAE, and Germany think of insurance?

YouGov Profiles offers a rolling database of people’s attitudes towards the insurance industry across a range of markets. The data shows a mixture of sentiment across Australia, Britain, the US, the United Arab Emirates, and Germany.

In every market, a majority of consumers are agreed that “being insured for everything is important”. This is highest in the US (61%) and Germany (60%); in the former country, it is possibly a byproduct of the country’s insurance-based healthcare system. Among Americans, for example, two-thirds (64%) believe the federal government should make sure everyone has health insurance. Over half of Britons (54%), Emiratis (54%) and Australians (52%) agree.

And yet a sizable proportion also say that, if it were possible, they would have no insurance at all if they could get away with it. This is highest in Germany (44%) and Australia (42%), though two in five Americans (40%) feel the same. Britons (30%) and Emiratis (32%) are less likely to say the same. Overall, it’s clear that a significant minority of consumers feel that their insurance is perhaps not giving them everything they expect from it.

This is especially clear when we look at attitudes to car insurance: over two in five Germans (44%), and around two in five Americans (40%) and Emiratis (38%) say there’s no point in holding a policy if they make you pay for accidents anyway.

The most variation comes when people are asked if they believe insurance is for unlucky people: around one in ten Australians (9%) and Britons (9%), rising to 16% of Americans, 17% of Germans, and over a quarter of people in the UAE (26%).

Methodology

YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Learn more about Profiles.

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