Customer satisfaction with life insurance is continuing to gradually fall, new research reveals.

A Roy Morgan survey shows that life suffers the lowest satisfaction rate of all major household and personal insurance types, including general and health insurance, at 64.6%.

It was 65.6% last year and 68.4% in 2016.

Insuranceline was the most popular risk and life insurer, with a 78.9% satisfaction rate. Allianz was second with a rate of 74.1%, a 4.3% improvement over 12 months. Zurich was third, after improving its satisfaction rate 3.4% points to 71.8%. CommInsure scored 67.3%, and MLC 67%.

Suncorp, AMP, TAL, AIA, Westpac and OnePath all scored between 65.3% and 63%.

However, Suncorp suffered a serious drop of 13.8% in its satisfaction rate over the past 12 months, the biggest fall by far of all the providers. Despite the sharp decline in the number of AMP’s life policies since the scandals uncovered during the royal commission, its satisfaction rate remains virtually unchanged since last year.

Over the past three years, the proportion of risk and life policies bought through an employer as part of super has jumped from 16.6% to 28%. The use of brokers and planners in buying policies now accounts for 17% of the market, down from 21.3% three years ago. The direct online channel only accounts for 9% of purchases.

Out of the nearly 1 million policies at risk of changing provider, only 201,000 actually changed. About 787,000 were subject to product comparison.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says fewer Australians are taking out risk and life insurance and if the trend continues it will lead over time to a smaller market over time.