Members of The Syndicate questioned the usefulness of claims statistics from insurers at the launch of its annual report.
The panel also asked whether advisers would publish their claims statistics for customers.
Steve Casey, head of marketing and propositions at Ageas Protect, said: "As an industry we have provided claims stats, hard facts for the very emotive subject of the payment of claims, so I think we've got it marginally wrong there.
"The train has left the station in terms of claims stats, people are publishing and that will continue."
Casey then posed the question: "If I was an intermediary or a network etc looking after customer outcomes and preparing packages and customers are claiming, would I publish my own claims stats?"
David Wells, senior product manager at Beagle Street warned that the public saw the industry as not paying out, he said: "If you listen to the feedback they're giving and some of those points coming through in the research, we are being put together in the responses with non-life insurance, PPI claims.
"We're not doing a very good job of differentiating our proposition."
He continued: "I don't think saying we're paying 92-98% of claimants means anything to customers, if it's life insurance, what's the 2%?
"The doubt that gets into people's mind if they're not seeing 100% is "will I be one of those? What do I need to do to make sure I get paid?""
Wells added: "As a new entrant into the market a percentage of paid-to-claim is very difficult to compete with. We've had in our two years of trading ten claims and we've had two fraudulent claims, is that 80% claims paid or 100% valid claims paid?
"The way they're interpreted and presented at the moment doesn't work for new entrants and therefore if that becomes the differentiator we're killing off new entrants."
