The Insurance Canada Perspective
November, 2004 — Since the dawning of the commercial internet in the mid 1990s, insurers and brokers have seen the Internet as an opportunity to provide products more easily for the consumer and more efficiently for the underwriter and distributor. Early experiments were not particularly successful, however the ubiquity of the Internet and the expectations of consumers now provide a different universe for insurers to consider when developing marketing, sales and service offerings. There appears to be active interest on the part of consumers to conduct their own research and willingness to go through with fulfillment and self-service. The issues are now ease of use and availability independent of the consumers’ own technology decisions.
A recent study in the European market made the following observation about sales and service of insurance:
Consumers look set to make insurance products online finance bestsellers. Insurers will use right-channeling scenarios to create an integrated customer experience and close the conversion gap to their advantage.
Business View Report, September 26, 2003
There are no reliable statistics on actual sales of P&C insurance over the internet in Canada. However, Forrester has estimated that up to 12% of the US consumers may be completing insurance transactions on the Internet.
This paper explores the current environment of on-line sales and marketing and supports the thesis that insurers are moving through a model which begins with simple on-line presence, and moves to straight through processing from the consumer, through intermediaries, to insurers.
On-Line P&C Insurance Marketing and Sales: From Exposure to Service – an Insurance-Canada.ca White Paper (pdf, 1.0 MB).
