What are business insurance reviews?

93% of online consumers say online reviews have an impact on their purchase decisions, and this is no different when it comes to small, local businesses or even larger purchase decisions you need — like business insurance. 

But where can you find business insurance reviews? What impact do reviews really have — and how can you use them to your advantage? Find out in our guide.

What are insurance reviews?

An insurance review is simply a customer service rating given to an insurance provider. It’s normally scored between 1-5 and is used as part of the decision-making process when a potential customer wants to buy insurance. It’s also used as a reputation tool for providers to showcase their products and level of service.  

It’s important to note that insurance reviews are very personal to the customer’s experience and are not always so black and white.  

While some customers may leave a negative review due to the service they’ve received, some may leave one based on being underinsured and even because of failed attempts at fraud!  

This may look bad on the provider, but in these cases, the fault lies with the customer; it’s always best to keep a critical eye on reviews as they’re not always a true reflection of your business.

Where can you find business insurance reviews?

Many providers have ratings online platforms such as Trustpilot and Feefo, but also industry-specific platforms like defaqto (financial services). If you do an online search for a provider, you’ll likely find their Google Business Profile — this also includes Google Reviews, where customers leave star-rating reviews like on other platforms. 

It’s also worth checking out social media profiles for reviews and discussions. Want to level up your social media marketing? Read our detailed guide from our team here at Bionic. 

What should a good review include? 

A good review, whether you’re writing it yourself or browsing, should include honest opinions on the following areas: 

• Customer service – This gives a general overview of the level of service received. It should make it clear how easy and helpful the service was (or wasn’t) and cover all elements of the purchase. From the initial call to finalising the policies.  
• Coverage option – This section should go into detail on the types of cover on offer. This could be highly specific to a certain industry or niche, but you can get a general feel for the scope of policies that a certain provider has to offer. 
• Claims process – Sometimes, you might have to make a claim on your business insurance policy, or you might get a claim made against you. Reading up on others’ experience of the claims handling process is valuable as it helps show what you could expect if the same were to happen to you. 
• Pricing – Pricing information is key. A good review includes transparent pricing on packages or policies bought. This gives you an idea of what you might be paying if you were to purchase a similar business insurance package. 
• Overall satisfaction – This is normally given as a star rating of 1–5 and shows a snapshot of how happy the customer was overall. This also helps when looking at reviews and filtering them down on which ones you want to read based on ratings. 

How can you leverage good reviews for your business?

It’s all well and good learning how to navigate the best reviews out there to help you decide on which business insurance provider or broker to go with. But you can also use reviews to help your own business. Here’s how: 

• Stay active on review sites – if someone leaves a review of your business — good or bad — it’s worth replying to it. This shows you care about what people say about your business and you’re engaged with the customer. But it’s not always a good idea to copy and paste the same message to every review. A personal reply shows you care what your customers have to say. 
• Display customer feedback on your site – The easiest way to do this is to use a review widget to show your live rating on your website. For popular review sites, like Trustpilot, this can easily be embedded on the site in your HTML. 
• Turn great reviews into a case study or testimonial – If you receive outstanding reviews about your business, then use them. Create case studies, customer stories, or testimonials to share on other platforms — like your website or social media platforms. Get them front and centre! 
• Ask customers to post reviews — If you need to build up your customer reviews, why don’t you send out emails asking customers to leave one? You can even incentivise these with a discount or draw to win a prize. Learn more about effective marketing for small businesses in our guide.

Why are customer reviews and feedback important? 

If you don’t know how your customers feel about your product/service or brand, how do you know what to improve upon? That’s why encouraging customer reviews is so important. 

Imagine you own a florist, and you have recently set up a webshop so people can order online and deliver flowers to whoever they want to. Because of teething problems with your order fulfilment, flowers are being delivered in an awful state, and customers are leaving bad reviews as a result. Customer feedback and reviews not only help you identify the problem but also give you an avenue to discuss the issues in more depth so you can get more details from your customers. You can then set about improving the service’ in this case, it’s probably a good idea to rethink your partner for order fulfilment.

Here are some other reasons you should ask customers for reviews: 

Provides trust and credibility 

You want your business to be credible and trustworthy to future customers. By displaying review information online, you’re showing that your business can be trusted and people should buy from you.  

Aside from this, listening to your customers and communicating with them will make them feel valued. Customers who feel valued are more likely to recommend your products/services to others. Word-of-mouth marketing should never be underestimated! 

Helps customer retention  

Customers who feel listened to and valued are probably more likely to return and buy again instead of going to competitors. A friendly, personal response to a review might just give your business that bit of personality it needs to set it apart and keep the customers returning, improving customer retention. 

Highlights improvement opportunities 

Learning your customer feedback can help you identify areas where your customers aren’t happy so you can make improvements in your business — from product and service to logistics, packaging and more.  

If you launch a new product or provide a new service –- you might have an idea of how people will react, but you won’t know for certain. Speaking to your customers directly or encouraging reviews can give you an idea of how they feel and if it meets their expectations. Of course, you’re not going to make changes based on every single customer, but if they all start saying the same thing — then it gives you an idea of what needs changing. 

Community engagement 

By asking for customer feedback, you create a conversation with your business and your brand. When you involve the customer in shaping your business, it makes them feel valued and can even lead to them becoming brand ambassadors! This is great for local small businesses where becoming a known business in the town or community really helps with footfall. 

Even if customer feedback is negative, you should respond and do what you can to put the situation right. If customers feel like you care more about them than taking their money, they’re most likely going to back your business time and time again. 

Benefits for SEO 

The way people talk about your business online is important, especially if you want people to be able to find it on search engines, like Google. These engines pick up on positive and negative sentiments about your brand, which can affect your Google rankings, so good reviews are beneficial for search engine optimisation. You can also use reviews across your website to display in search results using something called review schema. This means you might get your star ratings showing up in Google search results, which could help sway customers towards buying your product or service rather than a competitor. 

How can you distinguish between genuine and fake reviews? 

Customers are becoming more aware of fake reviews. In fact, a 2024 survey by Marketing News says 75% of consumers are concerned about fake reviews. If you’re tempted to ask people to write fake, positive reviews — think again. If your business has no negative reviews and only positive ones, customers are likely to think something is ‘off’. A genuine, longstanding business is likely to have a mix of positive, neutral and some negative reviews — you can’t always please everyone. 

 Here are some ways you can identify if a review is fake or not: 

• Check for detailed experiences – A customer that has something to say — good or bad, will want to share their experience in detail. People love to tell others about their experiences, so check for detailed reviews — with specific details relating to the business. If things match up, you’ll get a gut feeling that it’s real. 
• Look for scene setting - Real reviewers often describe the service they receive and specific processes. For example, if it’s a review on business insurance, then it may include details relating to the process of finding the right policies or package for the business. If it’s fake — it might just include black-and-white reasoning, stating excellent or awful and mentioning someone's name. 
• Evaluate the reviewer's profile – Real reviews will be by real people. On many review sites, you can check the reviewers' profiles. If they have a real photo, other reviews for products and a name that doesn’t sound like ‘John Smith’ — it’s probably real. 
• Check timings and frequency of posting - Check the dates of the review posts. Do they match up with any new products or services released? If there is an influx of positive reviews before the product is launched, there could be something dishonest going on. 

Get your business essentials sorted with Bionic 

Looking for business insurance? At Bionic, we only work with a panel of trusted providers who secure great deals for our customers, focusing on quality cover. It’s best not to be underinsured, and sometimes it’s difficult to know if you are properly insured — especially if your business has grown since you last renewed your policy. If that’s the case, it might be worth valuing your business and checking you have the right cover. Start a quote today, and our knowledgeable insurance team will be on hand to help you get your insurance sorted. 

Interested in more reading? Head to our insurance guides for more information on topics such as cyber insurance to what insurance you need if you’re working from home.