Mental models of customer ownership in the executive board: A case study in the pension insurance sector

Communicating the economic value of customer ownership in insurance: A qualitative analysis of annual reports

“…However, while the reports raise up different aspects of economic value, they are not necessarily precise in describing whether the value was actually created or not. This raises a question, whether customer ownership is seen solely as a tool for marketing communication, not as a strategic issue that influences the way how mutual performance is defined (cf., Talonen et al 2018). Accordingly, mutuals should put more emphasis in developing measures that illustrate how they actually performed in light of their mission and purpose to create value and benefits for their customer-owners.…”

“…However, rapid growth in some circumstances can increase the company's liabilities too far with respect to solvency capital. This, in turn, may impair the mutual's ability to give patronage refunds to longstanding customer-owners, and the growth is financed at their expense (see Talonen, Holmlund-Rytkönen, & Strandvik, 2018). The link between solvency capital and growth was articulated well by Cornish Mutual (p. 5):…”

“…These benchmark practices can then be utilized by other customer-owners to reduce the need for claims. With this mechanism in place, the mutual becomes a setting in which its members learn from each other and serves as an intermediate tool of that cooperation (Talonen et al, 2018). The resulting contribution to lowering the overall costs of the mutual and increasing customer-owner-perceived economic value is presented in the annual report of Aegis (p. 5), which describes sharing of benchmark loss-control practices and its influence on the mutual's finances and pricing thus:…”

“…The material addressing the second aspect of direct voice highlights that being an owner of a company entitles a customer not only to exercise control over the company's operations and direction but also to receive all the relevant information of the company (e.g., Hansmann, 1996). Furthermore, customer-owners' opportunities to exert an influence often hinge on their understanding of the mutual and its operations (cf., Talonen et al, 2018). Our dataset presents mutuals as emphasizing and paying attention to customer-owners' influence abilities accordingly.…”

Optimization of Rural Mutual Assistance Pension Mode under the Background of Aging Population

“…Aging of population refers to the increasing proportion of elderly people in this age structure when the population is divided into the elderly, middle-aged and young people. Nowadays, with the continuous improvement of medical level and the extension of life expectancy of the population, the aging of the population has become the development trend of the global society [1].…”