Legal & General CSR Report 2006

Overseas Operations

Legal & General America

Legal & General America provides individual life insurance, and our commitment to low cost coverage is a key way in which we deliver value to customers.

With more than 1,100(1) life insurance companies in the US, our customers have a range of choices and we are committed to delivering superior service in order to retain their business. Standards have been established for all customer transactions to provide timely, accurate service which is carefully monitored by our management team.

We continue to look for ways to improve. Enhancements in 2006 included:

  • An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system which was accessed by 23,000 customers since implementation in the fourth quarter
  • A new telephone system with integrated telephony to better monitor, report and manage our customer calls
  • An updated customer service system which benefits our customers by providing faster, more accurate processing
  • An automated process to acquire new addresses when postal mail is returned as undeliverable, thereby protecting customers from coverage lapses
  • Electronic notification to the selling agencies when policies enter the billing grace period; soliciting help to keep the coverage in force

In the event that a department with direct responsibility cannot resolve a customer grievance, we have established a committee comprising managers from other disciplines within the Company to create an impartial forum for complaint resolution. In 2006, with an in-force policy count of 711,500, we only had to address 170 complaints through this committee, a noteworthy testament to customer satisfaction.

Our customers entrust us with their privacy and we take that responsibility very seriously. We have taken steps to further protect their privacy by only displaying the last four digits of their social security numbers in our systems and by securely destroying all original documents after imaging, using an industry recognised company for the process. Our privacy statement (60KB PDF) is mailed to our polic owners annually.

(1) Based on 2005 data

Legal & General Netherlands

Legal & General Netherlands is committed to treating customers fairly and to selling value-for-money products and services, and both elements are integral to our strategy for the period from 2007 to 2009.

The implementation of new regulations in 2006 and the Financial Services Act (Wet Financiële Dienstverlening) have made it necessary to thoroughly review our product documentation to ensure that it is factually correct, comprehensible and not misleading. As a result, new financial leaflets have been drawn up for complex products.

Legal & General Netherlands is proud to have been awarded ‘Best Life Insurer 2006’ for the sixth consecutive year, following an extensive survey of 2,200 insurance brokers. This is partly due to the high scores which our present brokers assigned to our administrative processing, accuracy, the level of expertise of the office staff and the reliability, loyalty and integrity of our Company.

In addition, during National Financial Marketing Day 2006, we won the Financial Marketing Award. The prize was awarded for a campaign initiated by Legal & General in relation to term risk insurance, namely Lifestyle Rewards.

Legal & General France

Customer service is a high priority for Legal & General France, and our commitments include:

  • Identical commission rates for all savings products, in order to avoid any bias in the selling process
  • Settling claims, surrenders and withdrawals well within 15 working days of receiving the policyholder’s instruction compared with two months by law
  • Answering policyholders’ queries or complaints within 15 days by the Company Secretary, as specified in the terms of the policies.

For many years, Legal & General France has been among the winners of French Money Magazine’s awards. In 2006 our ‘Legal Avenir’ savings contract won the ‘Trophée d’Or’ (Golden Trophy) of the magazine ‘Le Revenu’, and our ‘Concordances’ savings contract won the ‘Prix Spécial de la Transparence’ (Transparency Award) of the same magazine.