Auto insurance customers say that using insurance company websites to service an existing policy is generally easier than using them to shop for a policy, according to a new study. Among the 20 auto insurance websites included in the study, Esurance, Progressive and GEICO perform particularly well in the ease of use for both shopping and servicing with their websites.
The J.D. Power auto insurance study just released measures online customer experiences while performing shopping and servicing tasks based on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “very difficult”; 3 being “neither difficult nor easy”; and 5 being “very easy.”
Power said it examined functional aspects of websites rather than aesthetic aspects, such as look and feel. Task ratings are used to compute an overall experience index for shopping and servicing based on a 500-point scale. The industry average for the overall shopping index is 347, and 414 for the average overall servicing index.
“More than one-half of all insurance shoppers today use the Web to scout their options, and many further seek to obtain quotes online,” said Jeremy Bowler of Power. “Since policy shopping frequently includes finding policy information and requesting a quote, it is understandable that customers who did not find those tasks to be particularly easy tend to abandon one brand in favor of others, often providing a low rating for that site.”
Similarly, when customers find it easy to perform such servicing tasks as viewing their policies and changing contact information, they are much more likely to return to the site and recommend both the website and their insurer to friends and colleagues.
While policy price is a significant factor in a shopper’s decision-making process, the study finds that a positive website experience may still influence customer preferences. As would be expected, a higher rated site that also offers a lower price quote tends to close the shopper’s business a majority of the time (90%); however, a higher rated site that provides a higher quoted price still closes a majority of the time (60%).
