Insurance companies' track records regarding new technologies may indicate the industry will not be among the leaders in adopting digital marketing tools such as e-mail, blogs, social networking, and Twitter. But Catherine Stagg-Macey, a senior insurance analyst for Celent and author of “Digital Marketing in Insurance: A Partnership With Potential,” believes the low expense levels in adopting such marketing tools do make them attractive for insurance carriers.

(For a look at the pluses and minuses of social media, click on this article.)

“It doesn't require lots of spend,” says Stagg-Macey. “You can try things at a fairly low price, assuming you have the appetite to do that. If we take that in consideration, we could expect to see a little more innovation than we have seen before in insurance. I wouldn't say leadership but perhaps following more quickly. At the moment, it looks like the U.S. is a little ahead in adapting to social networking than the UK is.”