Overall customer satisfaction with large commercial insurers has increased somewhat in 2018 compared with 2017, but a significant proportion of commercial insurance buyers remain “indifferent” to their insurers, according to the J.D. Power 2018 Large Commercial Insurance Study released Thursday.

The survey also found that satisfaction with large commercial insurers continues to lag behind that of other industries.

“As the industry contends with heavy catastrophic losses and strained profitability, keeping high-value large commercial customers is more critical than ever,” said David Pieffer, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware-based property/casualty insurance practice lead at Costa Mesa, California-based J.D. Power, in a statement accompanying release of the survey. “The key is to deliver services and customer experiences that increase overall satisfaction. Currently, 30% of large commercial insurance customers rate their relationship with their provider as ‘indifferent,’ and 45% say they are ‘pleased’ with their relationship. The group that is ‘pleased’ is 139% more likely to renew with their existing provider and 83% likely to indicate that they will not switch insurers even if a broker recommends it.”

The survey found that XL Catlin, which was acquired by Axa SA earlier this year, ranked highest among large commercial insurers for the third straight year with a score of 796 on a 1,000-point scale. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. ranked second with a score of 784, and Chubb Ltd. ranked third with a score of 782. The industry average stood at 769.

By way of comparison against another industry, large business customers of wireless service providers gave those providers an average score of 824, said Mr. Pieffer in an interview after the survey’s release.

Mr. Pieffer said the survey, which was conducted between April and August of this year, involved an extensive questionnaire.

“We definitely find large risk managers tend to be a lot more critical of their carriers,” said Mr. Pieffer. Nevertheless, the results indicated about an 8-point improvement over last year. He said individual program design and the number of programs offered helped push ratings up. But he said some risk managers are still “trying to get their hands around” issues such as cyber coverage.

The study was based on 1,659 evaluations from risk professionals or employees who provide oversight for their organization or are members of their organization’s risk management team.