Electronic and Traditional Word of Mouth as Trust Antecedents in Life Insurance Buying Decisions

Abstract

This research was conducted to examine the effects of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and traditional word of mouth (tWOM) on the level of consumers' trust in deciding to buy life insurance products in Indonesia. It involved 430 respondents who were online community members in two of Indonesia's largest cities; Jakarta and Surabaya. Surprisingly, this study found that eWOM was a more dominant predictor than tWOM in influencing trust. The other research result is that the trust variable influences consumers' buying decisions in positive and significant ways. This research recommends that managements of life insurance companies should build promotion policies based on trust so that the consumer decision level to buy life insurance products increases. The trick is for company management to identify and develop practices that improve the roles of positive eWOM and tWOM, so as to increase the level of consumers' trust to buy.