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As insurance markets mature and product offerings become increasingly commoditized, Customer Experience (CX) has emerged as a key strategic differentiator. Yet, in many organizations - particularly within developing markets - CX remains managed through fragmented initiatives rather than structured, system-level approaches. This study develops and applies a three-dimensional CX diagnostic model to evaluate alignment between employee perceptions, the maturity of internal CX systems and actual customer experiences in Georgia’s insurance sector. The model was piloted within a leading insurance company and validated through broader industry research involving multiple insurers, employees, and customers. The three dimensions of the model are: 1. Customer Centricity Perception Index (CCPI) - gauging employee perceptions of the organization’s customer orientation. 2. Customer Centricity Diagnostic Index (CCDI) - assessing the maturity and coherence of CX systems across ten organizational pillars. 3. Customer Perspective Index - capturing customers’ direct evaluations of these same pillars to enable internal-external comparison. Methodologically, the research integrates mixed methods. Qualitative data were gathered through in-depth interviews with 26 department heads and three focus groups involving over 30 employees, uncovering cultural enablers and barriers to CX. Quantitative surveys were then administered to 187 employees of the pilot company and later to 245 employees from two additional insurers. Parallel customer surveys (n = 100) provided the external perspective. The ten CX pillars assessed included Service Mission, Service Leadership, CX Onboarding, Service Empowerment, Customer Understanding, CX in Motivation Systems, Competitive Advantage, Customer Pain Point Management and Internal CX. Findings revealed a significant perception-to-reality gap. In the pilot company, CCPI scored 71%, while CCDI reached only 45%, producing a -26 percentage point gap. Sector-wide results were similar, with CCPI at 64% and CCDI at 47%. The lowest-performing pillars - CX in Motivation Systems, Service Empowerment, CX Onboarding and Customer Pain Point Management - indicate that while employees believe their organizations value customers, operational systems do not sufficiently support empowered, customer-focused service delivery. Customer perspectives were markedly more critical. Only 5% of customers perceived their insurer as genuinely customer-centric, compared to 67% of employees. Across most pillars, customers rated performance significantly lower, with the largest gaps in Competitive Advantage (-24%), CX in Motivation System (-22%) and Customer Understanding (-11%). This misalignment signals that internal optimism is not translating into externally visible, trust-building experiences. The research confirms the diagnostic model’s robustness in identifying CX maturity gaps and provides actionable insights for industry-wide improvement. Key recommendations include: embedding CX into performance management and incentives; strengthening onboarding with a focus on service culture; empowering employees with decision-making authority; and treating customer feedback as a strategic driver, not merely a problem-resolution tool. The study also emphasizes the influence of Generation Z’s emerging consumer expectations, characterized by demands for speed, transparency, personalization, and ethical engagement. For insurers, meeting these demands requires not only process improvement but also cultural and systemic transformation. This work contributes both theoretically and practically by offering a validated, scalable diagnostic framework for CX maturity assessment that can be applied beyond the insurance sector to other service industries. Future research directions include cross-sector applications, longitudinal studies to measure progress over time, and exploration of digital and AI tools in closing CX perception gaps. Keywords: Customer Experience, Diagnostic Model, Employee Perception, Georgia, Insurance