Consumers go online with insurance questions

Forget about calling an agent for information about insurance coverage. According to a new study from comScore, e-servicing is the way more consumers are communicating with their insurance providers.

by Kristina Knight

E-servicing includes online bill payment, viewing or changing coverage, adding or removing a driver or car and changing an address. According to the study e-servicing visits to auto insurance websites increased by 15% in Q2, 2007. That is more than double the growth rate for total visits to auto insurer websites.

“Several auto insurers have invested heavily in online customer relationship management during the past year, expanding beyond basic services such as bill payment to more complex activities like changing coverage online,” said Kevin Levitt, vice president of comScore Financial Solutions. “As these results show, customers are e-servicing in greater numbers, indicating that they appreciate the flexibility of having additional options for managing their policies.”

Allowing users to change their information or coverage quickly as they have time is a good way to ensure that consumers continue to be happy with their current provider. However, before pointing consumers online, providers need to have a cutting edge site.

This doesn't mean that the website has to have every bell and whistle available, but there are a few must-haves that are mandatory. Providers need to have customer service in place and ready to respond to requests and questions, sites need to be outfitted with good ecommerce software so that consumers can update and change information easily and information about changing information or policies needs to be easy to find and simple to follow.