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Hoe beter de reputatie en het imago van de eigen zorgverzekeraar, des te loyaler de verzekerde?

Out, K.E.M., Bes, R.E., Erp, K.J.P.M. van, Brabers, A.E.M., Jong, J.D. de. Hoe beter de reputatie en het imago van de eigen zorgverzekeraar, des te loyaler de verzekerde? TSG: Tijdschrift voor Gezondheidswetenschappen: 2018, 96
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An important element of the Dutch health insurance system is consumer mobility. Every year, during an annual enrolment period, citizens are free to change insurer. In the marketing field, the critical role of image and reputation has been widely accepted. Research showed a positive relation between both concepts and loyalty. It is unclear whether this relationship also exists in the context of health insurers.

Aim
This study aimed to test the relationship between reputation and image and enrollees’ loyalty towards their health insurer. Data were collected among 2,983 respondents of the Insurance Panel and the Dutch Health Care Consumer Panel of NIVEL.

Results
Our results demonstrate that the better enrollees score on reputation and image, the more loyal they are towards their health insurer. Furthermore, our results show the existence of ‘spurious loyalty’. Enrollees who expect barriers to switch insurer are more loyal than enrollees that do not expect these barriers.

Conclusie
A striking result is that a negative image does not influence loyalty in the case that enrollees expect barriers: the existence of a negative image does not help enrollees that expect barriers to switch insurer. (aut. ref.)
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