Insurance web sites could use some freshening up, according to marketing and consulting firm Vox.
Their study compared 12 insurance industry providers: State Farm, Allstate, Progressive, Geico, American Family, Liberty, 21st Century, and Country Financial, AIG and Nationwide, and, as a control group, two companies from related segments, AAA Chicago and USAA. It analyzed the positioning of key customer and user elements, such as insurance quote and find-an-agent functions. Each company was given a rating based on a set of usability and benchmark criteria.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the outcome of the study revealed that most industry leaders place the most importance on the quote function. The study also revealed that there is a variance of other elements on the home pages, which means consumers do not have a standard way to find agents or access claim information. In comparison to other industries such as banking, the report said that insurance seems to be lagging in terms of online standards. One exception to the overall findings is 21st Century, which recently redesigned its homepage to improve the positioning and clarity of the various user elements.
Another insurance web site study, conducted by Change Sciences Group, offered a warning to sites that do not tout their claim-handling processes.
"One thing that carriers have to distinguish themselves is how easy they are to deal with and how good they are in handling their claim processes," said Steve Ellis, partner at Change Sciences. "Very few companies talk about what their claim processes are like in terms of how they handle a claim and how easy it is to manage. When [insurance companies] don't address this on their sites, they are sending the message that while they might be a solid company and offer good rates, they're going to be a giant, impersonal bureaucracy as opposed to a company full of helpful people when an insured has an accident."
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