Auto Insurance For The Digital Age – Online, On Demand
The maturation of the Internet has turned it into a viable marketplace and no industry has benefited more than the auto insurance business. In May of 2006 alone, Yahoo saw almost four million searches on “car insurance.” Three of the strongest insurance companies in the country do their selling primarily over the internet or telephone: Progressive, eSurance and Geico.
There are other highly popular sites on the web that provide multiple quotes from standard insurance companies, but do so without the benefit of an insurance agent. Those sites that provide quotes generally will turn the sales portion of the customer interaction over to the insurance provider that has been selected.
Exact numbers are hard to come by, but assembling a few fragments gives us a fair picture of the industry. According to Forrester Research, by 2004 30% of all Americans were using the Internet to research auto insurance. By 2005, 16% of the populace were not only doing their research on line but completing the auto insurance purchase as well.
The relatively low percentage of people completing online...