Communicating Customer Ownership in Annual Reports: Perspective of Hedonic Value

Insurance industry is, and has been for a long time, characterized by a strong presence of customer-owned mutual insurance companies that account roughly one-third of the global annual premiums. As mutuals are owned by the communities they serve, one would expect them to display unique characteristics in how they create not only utilitarian but also hedonic value for their customer-owners. The aim of this study is to examine how managers communicate the hedonic value of ownership to their customer-owners. The data consist of 18 mutual insurance companies’ annual reports from seven different countries: Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. The resulting framework, produced by a thematic analysis, illustrates how managers of mutuals communicate the hedonic value of customer ownership. Results as well as the limitations of the study point out several interesting and new research avenues and managerial implications.