November 10th, 2023, Lesley Simeon
A recent YouGov survey asked consumers across 17 international markets about the industry sectors they think are doing enough to minimize their environmental impact. While previously published pieces focused on health services and hotels, here we look at insurance/financial services providers.
Insurance/financial services providers are among the categories of businesses few consumers think are doing enough - fewer than two in ten consumers (19%) think these sectors are doing enough to reduce their environmental impact. However, it’s not all bad news - this figure marks an eight percentage-point improvement from what our survey revealed last year.
Nonetheless, as of 2023, a larger proportion of consumers feel insurance/financial services providers are not doing enough to reduce their environmental impact.
Last year, a third (33%) of consumers said insurance/financial services providers are not doing enough to reduce their impact on the environment. In 2023, more than two in five (45%) are of this opinion.
Moving on to YouGov’s demographic data, men are more likely than women (21% vs. 16%) to say insurance/financial services providers are doing enough to minimize their environmental impact. Interestingly, similar proportions of men and women (45% vs. 44%) say this sector is not doing enough.
Next, we look at what consumers have to say about insurance/financial service providers’ sustainability efforts, by country.
Asians more likely than Europeans to say insurance/financial services providers are doing enough to reduce their environmental impact
UAE leads, with the largest share of consumers (40%) who say financial services providers are doing enough to reduce their impact on the environment. Our Asian markets, Indonesia (35%), Hong Kong (34%) and urban India (32%) follow UAE. In Singapore, less than two in ten (18%) consumers are of this opinion. A similar proportion of consumers in the US (17%) agree.
Americans are more likely to say they aren’t sure whether insurance/financial services providers are doing enough or not to be sustainable (45%).
Britons are least likely to say insurance/financial services providers are doing enough (9%) – equal proportions of Britons are either of the opinion that the sector isn’t doing enough, or they don’t know if enough is being done or not (45% each).
We see largely similar opinions across Europe.
Consumers in our European markets are not very convinced of the sustainability-focused efforts of insurance/financial service providers. Nearly three in five (57%) of consumers in Spain say their efforts are not enough, followed by those in France (55%) and Italy (50%).
In the Nordics in particular, over a third of Swedes (35%) and Danes (36%) say the financial services sector isn’t doing enough - the least likely across all markets to say so.
Across all our markets, Mexicans are most likely (60%) to say financial services providers are not doing enough, whereas in Asia particularly, nearly half of all Singaporeans (49%) are of the same opinion.
Finally, over half of all consumers in Denmark (54%) say they don’t know whether insurance/financial services providers are doing enough or not to minimize their environmental impact. Poland (49%) and Sweden (47%) follow Denmark, suggesting that in these markets better communication could be the key.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 17 markets with sample sizes varying between 509 and 2003 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in July 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.