UNSAR-IRES barometer: Number of Romanians who buy insurance policies online doubles in 2020

The share of Romanians who prefer to buy insurance policies online by using the computer or the mobile phone doubled in 2020, from 6 per cent in 2019 to 12 per cent, show the results of a barometer by UNSAR-IRES regarding the "Perception of risk and the insurance culture in Romania," published on Thursday.

According to the centralized data, 1 of 5 Romanians (approx. 18 per cent) prefer online services when buying insurance policies or manage them, while the share of those who use the online services in general, other than insurance-related services, is of 59 per cent.

Moreover, the part of the population becoming increasingly more interested in online solutions is that of the young up to 35, with higher education and who live in the urban area.

The same research showed that two-thirds of the participants (66 per cent) said the online solutions are important to them when they buy or manage insurance policies and 76 per cent of the respondents said they were pleased with the online services they used.

In this respect, online services are the second factor of satisfaction in respect to the experience with the insurance companies, after the interaction with the staff, about which 88 of the participants said they were pleased and very pleased.

Using online services is also tightly connected with the people's access to the Internet and according to the most recent official statistics, three-thirds of the households in Romania have access to the Internet. In order to have access to the Internet, 86 per cent of the population uses a smartphone.

The UNSAR-IRES barometer was done in May 2020 on a base sample of 1,309 persons with ages between 18 and 50 years old and on a screening sample of 2,555 persons aged over 18, by using the Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing method.

The maximum tolerated error is of +/- 2.7 per cent for the base sample and +/- 2 per cent for the screening sample.

Set up in 1994, UNSAR represents 20 companies holding 80 per cent of the local insurance market. Since 2007, the Union has been a full member of Insurance Europe - the European (re)insurance federation.

The Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy - IRES has been operating on the research market in Romania since 2009 as an independent think tank, with part of its studies and projects being dedicated to the optimization of the public policies in various fields of the Romanian society. IRES is a member of ESOMAR (European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research).