While the battle for auto-insurance consumers seems to largelycenter around price, a good website experience can go a long waywith consumers as well, a recent survey shows.

"A positive online experience for customers has measurablebenefits for insurers, both in terms of existing customersatisfaction and attracting additional shoppers to their websites,"says Jeremy Bowler, senior director of the global insurancepractice at J.D. Power & Associates after J.D. Power releasedits "2013 Insurance Website Evaluation Study."

According to J.D. Power, price remains a significant factor forauto-insurance consumers, but a majority of shoppers will stillchoose a carrier that offers a positive website experience even ifthe quoted price is not the lowest. "As would be expected, a higherrated site that also offers a lower price quote tends to close theshopper's business a majority of the time (90 percent)," J.D. Powersays. "However, a higher rated site that provides a higher quotedprice still closes a majority of the time (60 percent).

Of course, the opposite is also true, J.D. Power notes. "Morethan one-half of all insurance shoppers today use the web to scouttheir options, and many further seek to obtain quotes online,"Bowler notes. "Since policy shopping frequently includes the tasksof finding policy information and requesting a quote, it isunderstandable that customers who did not find those tasks to beparticularly easy tend to abandon one brand in favor of others,often providing a low rating for that site."

J.D. Power's study measured online customer experiences whileperforming shopping and servicing tasks based on a scale of 1-5,with 1 being "very difficult," 3 being "neither difficult noreasy," and 5 being "very easy." 

The study examined functional aspects of websites rather thanaesthetic aspects, such as look and feel, J.D. Powersays. 

J.D. Power notes that customers indicated that, in general,using insurer websites to service an existing policy was easierthan shopping for a policy.

The study's shopping evaluation included: requesting a quote,comparing policies, finding policy information, finding discountinformation and finding company contact information. Aftercustomers rated these tasks, J.D. Power says each task was weightedto determine "the extent to which it influences the website'soverall usability." 

The two most heavily weighted tasks—finding policy informationand requesting a quote—were the hardest tasks to perform, J.D.Power says, with customers providing ratings of 3.6 and 3.8,respectively. Finding company contact information is the easiesttask to perform, with a rating of 4.2.

Based on a 500-point scale, the industry average for the overallshopping index was 347, and 414 for the average overall servicingindex. 

Among the 20 websites included in the study, J.D. Power callsout Esurance, GEICO and Progressive for performing "particularlywell in the ease of use for both shopping and servicing with theirwebsites."

The 2013 Insurance Website Evaluation Study (IWES) was based onmore than 7,000 evaluations in March and April 2013.