Tapiola General’s market share has grown steadily already for over ten years. Turnover grew by 8.5% and premium income by 11.4%. At the level of the whole industry, premium income grew by about 6%. Tapiola General's market share is estimated to grew to 18.2% from 17.5%. Tapiola General’s result was strong and its solvency remained at an outstanding level.
Both customer retention and customer’s satisfaction with Tapiola General’s services continued to develop favourably throughout 2005.
Operating expenses and the number of accidents relative to insurance premiums at Tapiola General have developed as planned. However, the loss ratio needs to be improved in certain types of insurance both by risk management measures and more careful customer selection. Improvement of profitability is a priority for Tapiola, since the customers of a mutual company are also its owners, who gain from the result of the company through customer benefits.
Competition intensified further
The most significant change in the competitive situation was the sale of Pohjola to the OKO Bank late in 2005. This increases competition, especially in relation to corporate customers, since each company is trying to attract customers that centralise their purchases.
The Tapiola Group is well placed to meet this challenge, as Tapiola is already prepared to offer comprehensive total service across company borders. Tapiola continues the intense development of its services, products, and customer benefits.
In 2005, Tapiola joined the World Wildlife Foundation’s (WWF) Green Office system. Membership helps Tapiola to increase its personnel’s awareness of environmental issues. Membership is also a symbol of Tapiola’s desire for societal responsibility in its activities. WWF seeks to engage in longstanding and tangible cooperation with companies to promote sustainable development.
Best claims service in Finland
In October 2005, Tapiola’s new claims settlement service model was adopted throughout the country. Phone claims services play a major role in it, as now all Tapiola customers can initiate their claim with a single telephone call and often even have the claim completely taken care of.
This was the biggest change of service processes in the history of Tapiola General. Experiences from the first phase have been quite positive. The new service is to be fine-tuned to the effect that customers can be provided with the best claims service in Finland by the end of 2006.
In 2005 many services previously managed from the head office in Espoo were transferred to Tampere, where, for example, motor vehicle damage claims are now processed. At the end of 2005, about 50 people in Tampere were occupied with these tasks, and the number of personnel will gradually increase to over one hundred.
Juha Seppänen
Managing Director
Tapiola General