Report: Social Insights Into The South African Insurance Industry

Social Insights/ South African Insurance Industry © WhySatisfy.com | 1© WhySatisfy.com
Social Insights/
South African
Insurance Industry
Written by Jenna Bloch

Social Insights/ South African Insurance Industry © WhySatisfy.com | 2
Contents
1.0 Aim and Methodology��3
2.0 South African Insurance Industry Social Index��4
3.0 The Social Landscape��6
3.1 Online Conversation Analyses�� 6
4.0 Insurance Type Breakdown��9
4.1 General Web Conversation�� 9
4.2 Facebook Mentions��10
4.3 Twitter Mentions��10
4.4 Mentions Over Time��11
5.0 Share of Voice ��13
6.0 Insights and Audience Analysis��15
6.1 Gender Profiles��16
6.2 Interest Professional Profiles��17
7.0 Findings��19

1.0 Aim Methodology
This report looks at the insurance industry as a collective, seeing how frequently customers speak about
insurance online, who makes up the audience, the share of voice and sentiment around conversations. We
further delve into the main insurance categories analysing which topics are more pertinent than others to
consumers.
Using Brandwatch we reviewed how each individual company performs on social media and where they are
placed among their peers in terms of sentiment and share of voice.
The analysis of the online conversation is broken into five parts:
• South African Insurance Industry Social Index: Provides a comprehensive ranking for 10 insurance brands
across social activity, followership and content performance.
• The Social Landscape: Looks at the conversations taking place, the brands speaking and how the audience
was reacting.
• Insurance Type Breakdown: Here we delve into the different insurance categories and determine which
brands were being discussed for each category.
• Share of Voice: Highlights the brands who had the most share of voice.
• Overall Insights and Audience Analysis: Details the overall conversations that took place within the
industry and breaks down the audience demographics.

2.0 South African Insurance
Industry Social Index
The Insurance Industry Social Index presents important metrics in a brand’s online presence and displays
each brand’s social media performance across five different factors.
The index has evaluated the 10 brands across these five factors:
• Audience Social Activity: This metric examines the total audience engagement a brand earns on social
media. Specifically, it measures, @mentions, replies, retweets, likes, comments and shares.
• Brand Social Activity: Brand social activity looks at how active a brand is on social media, measuring how
often they tweet, reply, retweet, post, or comment.
• Followership: This score measures how big a brand’s social media following is in terms of Facebook page
likes and Twitter followers.
• Content Performance: Content performance examines how much engagement a brand draws from their
content. More specifically, it looks at how many likes, comments, shares, replies and retweets their social
media posts receive.
• Total Score: The final score is the sum of the four scores above.There is no special weighting given to any
score.
The Composite Score reflects a brand’s performance across each category, for each category brands are
normalised against a single leader, which receives a score of 100, as such the maximum potential score is
400.
Looking at the Brand Social Index it is clear that Old Mutual and Discovery dominate the social media among
their peers. Old Mutual is a clear favourite when it comes to audience social activity, however Discovery is the
industry leader in terms of brand social activity and followership. Hollard’s content performs the best, but it
does not translate to follwership or audience engagement.

BRAND AUDIENCE
SOCIAL
ACTIVITY
BRAND
SOCIAL
ACTIVITY
FOLLOWERSHIP CONTENT
PERFORMANCE
OVERALL
SCORE
OldMutualSA 100 57 57 90 343
Discovery_SA 79 100 100 100 327
Hollard 76 46 46 59 282
OUTsurance 68 40 40 57 254
MiWay Insurance 43 75 75 51 213
KingPriceIns 42 55 55 46 169
Santam Insurance 21 31 31 50 142
1st for Women 22 37 37 51 133
BudgetInsurance 22 28 28 41 118
PrimeMeridian 6 13 13 56 91
Figure 1: Analyses social media conversations from Q1 2017

3.0 The Social Landscape
As more and more people go online to research service providers, social media plays a pivotal role in the
customer’s purchase cycle.The customer listens not only to what their peers are saying and reviewing but
also to what the brand is saying and how they interact with their clients.
3.1 Online Conversation Analyses
• PRIME MERIDIAN • BUDGET INSURANCE • SANTAM • KING PRICE • HOLLARD • 1ST FOR WOMEN
• DISCOVERY SA • OLD MUTUAL • OUTSURANCE • MIWAY INSURANCE
3%
0% 1%
7%
7%
9%
15%20%
29%
6%
2%
0% 2%
6%
7%
10%
10%
18%
43%
2%
5%
2%
0% 1%
5%
6%
7%
35%
39%
Figure 2.1 General website / online
conversations during Q1 2017
Figure 2.2 Twitter conversa-
tions during Q1 2017
Figure 2.3 Facebook conversations during Q1 2017

From the graphs above we see that OutSurance dominated the online conversation followed closely by Old
Mutual, together they made up almost three quarters of the online conversations. Discovery was the main
player on Twitter and owned almost 50% of all Twitter conversations. Discovery has a number of brand
ambassadors for their Vitality brand, they tweet often about the events each ambassador is taking part in
and their achievements, this creates a lot of engagement and translates into substantial Share of Voice.
The tables below depict how an average day looked on Facebook and Twitter from an audience and brand
point of view.
AN AVERAGE DAY ON TWITTER
TWEETS 7.5
REPLIES 5.3
FOLLOWERS 15,924
POSTS 0.4
COMMENTS 2.8
LIKES 67,305
@MENTIONS 20.5
REPLIES 5.1
RETWEETS 4.1
SHARES 16.3
COMMENTS 7.6
LIKES 178
CONSUMER TECH BRANDS
CONSUMER TECH BRANDS
CONSUMER TECH AUDIENCES
CONSUMER TECH AUDIENCES
Figure 3.1: Analyses Twitter conversations during Q1 2017
AN AVERAGE DAY ON FACEBOOK
Figure 3.2: Analyses Facebook conversations during Q1 2017

Customers start more conversations on Facebook, they also engage more on this platform by commenting
more than they would retweet a brand on Twitter.There are 400% more shares on Facebook compared to
retweets on Twitter.
Brands who promote themselves on social media via marketing campaigns do not always have the greatest
share of the conversation. Without a doubt running competitions that attract users will increase a brand’s
presence, but it does not often translate into feedback about their actual purpose. In general insurers are
more vocal on Twitter than Facebook, even though their Facebook audiences are bigger. Fans are more likely
to like content on Facebook than on Twitter but are more vocal and interactive on Twitter.This could be due
to the nature of the Twitter platform and the ease of interacting with the brand via short messages. In the
same respect brands are more likely to reply on Twitter as opposed to Facebook. Perhaps they know that
Twitter has a greater propensity to go viral.

4.0 Insurance Type Breakdown
The conversations that the audience was speaking about were divided into 6 categories
• SHORT TERM • LONG TERM • LIFE • MOTOR • HOUSEHOLD • BUSINESS
This was further analysed per social platform and website and general web conversation.
*Long Term insurance refers to investments
4.1 General Web Conversation
On forums and websites Short Term insurance was the predominant topic and it was discussed or mentioned
among almost all of the insurers analysed. OutSurance received the most mentions spread across Motor, Life
and Short Term insurance. Old Mutual was the only insurer where the dominate discussion was about Long
Term insurance.The predominate conversation for King Price was Motor insurance.
MENTIONS ON THE WEB
Figure 4.1: Analysing general web conversations about insurance by consumers Q1 2017
1st for Women
Budget Insurance
Discovery SA
Hollard
King Price Insurance
Old Mutual SA
OUTsurance
Prime Meridian
Santam Insurance

4.2 Facebook Mentions
While all insurers received topic mentions on Facebook, Motor insurance was the most widely discussed
topic followed by Life insurance. MiWay dominated the overall conversations, predominately discussing Motor
insurance, followed by Short Term insurance.
Besides Motor Insurance, Short Term and Life Insurance were popular categories too, the majority of
conversations for Hollard were about Life insurance. Long Term insurance dominated Old Mutual’s
conversations.
MENTIONS ON FACEBOOK
Figure 4.2: Analysing Facebook conversations about insurance by consumers Q1 2017
4.3 Twitter Mentions
Overall Motor insurance dominated the conversations on Twitter with King Price dominating Twitter
conversations. Discovery had numerous conversations on Twitter about all insurance categories except for
household, this was seen on Facebook and web as well.
1st for Women
Budget Insurance
Discovery SA
Hollard
MiWay Insurance
Old Mutual SA
OUTsurance
Prime Meridian
Santam Insurance

MENTIONS ON TWITTER
Figure 4.3: Analysing Twitter conversations about insurance by consumers Q1 2017
4.4 Mentions Over Time
The graph below shows the conversation topics measured and how they were discussed during the analysed
time period.
TOPICS OVER THE PERIOD 1st JAN 2017 to 31st MARCH 2017
Figure 4.4: Shows when insurance categories were discussed during Q1 2017
1st for Women
Budget Insurance
Discovery SA
Hollard
Old Mutual SA
OUTsurance
Prime Meridian
Santam Insurance
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
MAR 31stMAR 21stMAR 11thMAR 1stFEB 19thFEB 9thJAN 30thJAN 20thJAN 10thJAN 1st

Motor, life and short term insurance are the most popular topics in the industry, with motor insurance
dominating overall. Besides competitions that were about motor insurance, this can highlight the state of
South African roads or crime and how people value their cars higher than other material items. Cars are
expensive and if they are damaged they can hindrance our day to day lives and as a result customers want to
ensure they have the most comprehensive and affordable motor insurance, irrespective of brand.

5.0 Share of Voice
Share of Voice looks at the weight or percentage each insurer had over the others in terms of dominating the
online conversation.
• PRIME MERIDIAN • BUDGET INSURANCE • SANTAM • KING PRICE • HOLLARD • 1ST FOR WOMEN
• DISCOVERY SA • OLD MUTUAL • OUTSURANCE • MIWAY INSURANCE
Figure 5: Share of Voice sentiment during Q1 2017
Figure 5.1 Negative Mentions
Figure 5.3 Positive Mentions
Figure 5.2 Neutral Mentions
35%
38%
8%
7%
2%
0% 2%
2%
3%
3%
24%
25%
30%
8%
5%
4%
1%
0% 1%
2%
36%
20%
19%
10%
8%
4%
1%
0% 1%
1%

Together Outsurance and Discovery had over 50% of the Share of Voice for all sentiments, showing that they
dominated the overall online conversations within the insurance industry.Together they shared over 70% of
all negative conversations, all other brands only had mariginals percentages of negative sentiment.
When looking at neutral sentiment Old Mutual contributed to a quarter of the conversations and 20% of all
positive conversations. Discovery had the higest percentage, 36%, of positive conversations online.
Brands that have dominance in the Share of Voice have almost equal shares in positive, negative and neutral
conversations. One can say this is because regardless of the conversation sentiment a brand needs to respond
in order to try and maintain a neutral equilibrium. It is important for brands to keep their fans and followers
happy thus striving for positive sentiment as this is the basis of a brand’s “true colours” and what a potential
customer will see when making their final purchase decision.

6.0 Insights and Audience Analysis
During the period analysed there were over 70 000 online mentions about the insurance industry.These
mentions were contributed by over 25 000 unique authors. 16% (10 836) of all comments were positive while
5% (3 313) were negative. Most comments came from Twitter and 12 500 from Facebook and a much smaller
percentage from blogs, forums and news sites.
OVERALL CONVERSATION BY PAGE TYPE
• TWITTER • FACEBOOK • NEWS • FORUM • GENERAL • BLOG • INSTAGRAM • IMAGE • VIDEO • REVIEW
Figure 6.1: Overall insurance mentions during Q1 2017
GENERAL SENTIMENT
Figure 6.2: Overall sentiment for the insurance industry for Q1 2017
TOP SITES
Figure 6.3: Top sites mentioning insurance during Q1 2017
• TWITTER.COM
• FACEBOOK.COM
• MYBROADBAND.CO.ZA
• BUSINESSLIVE.CO.ZA
• SHARENET.CO.ZA
• 4x4COMMUNITY.CO.ZA
• INSURANCEGATEWAY.CO.ZA
• INSURANCECHAT.CO.ZA
• BIZCOMMUNITY.COM
• ALLAFRICA.COM

43% FEMALE 57% MALE
6.1 Gender Profiles
The gender split for the audience who were talking about insurance during this period consisted of 43%
female and 57% male.The core interests of this audience include sports, family parenting, business and
music while the core professions are executives and artists.
GENDER SPLIT
Figure 7.1: Gender split of consumers mentioning insurance, 2093 female and 2749 male authors
This can be broken done further for each insurer in the group. Even though 1st for Women is an insurer
catering primarily for women with their unique and individual needs, they do not have the largest female
online audience among their peers. Prime Meridian had the highest percentage of females in their audience
(88%) followed by 1st for Women (78%), all other insurers have a male dominant audience. King Price was the
most male dominant during the period, their audience was 66% male.
SA INSURANCE GENDER BREAKDOWN
• FEMALE • MALE
Figure 7.2: Audience gender split by insurance brand for Q1 2017
Industry Average
MiWay
Old Mutual SA
Hollard
Discovery SA
OUTsurance
Budget Insurance
Santam Insurance
1st for Woman
Prime Meridian
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

6.2 Interest Professional Profiles
Among the entire audience for all brands, family and parenting make up a core interest group, to many who
have children, insurance is an important need.
INDUSTRY AVERAGE AUDIENCE INTERESTS
Figure 8.1: Insurance industry audience interest groups Q1 2017
Although the gender split is more male dominant it is interesting to note that the main interests for the
overall audience is family and parenting, followed by business.This can indicate that fathers are taking a
more proactive role in the parenting and are as concerned about how to raise their children as they are in
how to provide for them financially.
Profession Profiles
There was a vast range of professionals from all industries who were vocal about insurance. Of those
analysed Old Mutual and Discovery had the biggest range as they have the largest audiences.
0% 2% 4% 8%6% 10% 12% 14% 16% 18%
Family Parenting
Music
Technology
Travel
Politics
Movies
Fine Arts
Automotive
Photo Video
Animals Pets
TV
Environment
Food Drinks
Books
Beauty/Health Fitness
Business
Sports
Games
Science
Fashion

INDUSTRY AVERAGE AUDIENCE PROFESSIONS
Figure 8.2: Insurance industry audience professions Q1 2017
Almost a quarter of the overall audience consists of professional executives, followed closely by artists (20%),
this shows that insurance is a need amongst all people in society no matter a person’s gender, interests or
profession. One reason can be the nature of the environment in South Africa where crime is present and
people have a need to protect their belongings that they have invested a lot of money in and may lose due to
matters that are not in their control.Another reason is that people from all walks of life want to be prepared
for the future and their children’s future and as a result will invest in policies and investments accordingly.
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
Legal
Health Practitioner
Sales/Marketing/PR
Student
Artist
Executive
Journalist
Scientist Researcher
Sportpersons Trainer
Software Developer IT
Teacher Lecturer

7.0 Findings
Most customers view their monthly insurance payments as a grudge purchase.Although we know that
insurance is important for high value material possessions that can be damaged or stolen as well as for life
insurance to protect you or your loved ones in times of grave illness or death, it often feels like a cost where
one does not ever see the rewards or benefits, especially if you are lucky enough not to have to claim. For this
very reason customers want to ensure that they have the best possible insurance deal, are receiving the best
service and as a bonus, to see some value in what they are spending their money on, they want to experience
some great value adds too.
It is interesting to note the topics that customers are talking about and how popular motor insurance is,
clearly this is a very competitive market and one can switch from one brand to another with ease. In today’s
tough economic times customers are extremely price sensitive more so than brand loyal, and will switch from
one brand to the next so long as they can save money and receive good service.
Word of mouth plays an important role in advertising a brand, a “media” where the brand has very little
control.All a brand can do to influence a customer’s purchase decision is ensure that their current customers
have easy interactions with their brand and become promoters. Social media has created a platform where
promoters or detractors have great influence in deciding which brand a customer will choose.This report
summarises key benchmarks within the industry and provides important insights about socially active
customers.
Key Takeaways:
• Old Mutual has the most actively engaged social audience while Discovery is the most active brand on
social media and has the largest following amongst their peers. Hollard insurance along with Old Mutual
has the best performing content.
• The insurance industry has a gender profile that is slightly skewed more towards male.Their interests
include family parenting, business and sports.The audience consists predominately of executives and
artists.
• Old Mutual is the most popular brand when it comes to discussing Long Term insurance, this refers to
investments. Life insurance is discussed predominately among Discovery and Old Mutual, with some
mentions by Outsuarance and Hollard.
• Motor insurance is a popular topic in South Africa and there is a substantial market, making it a very
competitive industry. Life and Long Term Insurance are not as popular and the audience appears to be
loyal to a chosen brand.
• Although their customers are most present on Facebook and more interactive on that platform too, brands
still tend to put more promotional or marketing posts on Twitter.
• Facebook had a vast array of conversations discussing each of the topic categories, most of the
conversations on Twitter were about Motor insurance.

Report: Social Insights Into The South African Insurance Industry

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Report: Social Insights Into The South African Insurance Industry