NAIC Reports Traffic Doubled in 2006

The Web site of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) received more than one million visits in 2006, doubling the previous year's total, according to the NAIC. The domain (www.naic.org) logged a total of 1,150,632 hits, marking a drastic increase from the 480,675 visits counted in 2005.

In addition to the rising number for the year, an analysis of the NAIC site showed the domain averaged 3,152 hits per day in 2006, up from 1,316 in 2005. The average visit in 2006 lasted more than 18 minutes, a six-minute increase from 2005. A "visit" is tallied each time someone logs on to any page within the NAIC Web domain.

Catherine J. Weatherford, NAIC executive vice president and CEO, attributes the increased Web activity to an "improved user experience" throughout the site, making it easier for visitors to navigate from page to page. "There has been a considerable amount of improvements made to the accessibility and organization of information within the NAIC site," Weatherford says. "The tools and options made available to our members, the insurance industry, and consumers are second to none. The site is an all-encompassing, multimedia instrument that offers on-demand access to important NAIC data and information."

Another reason for the spike in visits was the increased consumer awareness generated from Insure U, the NAIC's education-based consumer Web site. This effort included a series of public-service announcements, which guided consumers to the NAIC site to learn more about their insurance needs.

Updated daily, the NAIC site features an extensive amount of background on the association, including committee documents and updates, white papers, news releases, NAIC publications, consumer-oriented material, extensive databases, industry-based links, individual Web pages for the wide-range of systems available to NAIC members, links to the many divisions within the NAIC, and updated information on past and upcoming NAIC national meetings.

"The NAIC is dedicated to offering a vast amount of regulatory information through its Web site," Weatherford says. "To have so many people interested in what our expansive site has to offer is a testament to the NAIC's mission of promoting the public interest and continuing to support and improve state-based insurance regulation."