While brokers think they have an idea about how consumers shop for their products, new research reveals that many misconceptions prevail.
While it’s easy for brokers to view mobile channels as being frivolous or ineffective, new research reveals that consumers who shop for auto insurance policies with their smartphone or tablet have nearly identical shopping habits as those who do so with desktop consumers, despite common misconceptions otherwise.
“There’s a legacy perception of mobile where many carriers and agencies see it as a lower value channel, and as a result, they often underinvest in mobile workflows and mobile advertising,” said Tomas Revesz, CTO, Everquote. “But there’s a lot of research and data that counters that.”
As evidence of this, Revesz points to an analysis he conducted using five months of insurance consumer behavior. In doing so, his team found that mobile shoppers were not only as equally interested in requesting quotes and buying coverage as their desktop counterparts, but were actually more likely to complete their associated quote request forms.
Moreover, the amount of coverage that consumers requested didn’t vary by channel, but remained a constant dependent on age.
“Every time we found something that seemed unique about mobile consumers, when we dove deeper and compared it with age, we typically found that it was the age of the consumer that mattered, not whether they used a cell phone or desktop,” said Andrew Ressler, EVP of Consumer Products, Everquote.
In addition, mobile users were just as likely to own a home as those who shopped using a computer, which indicates that these findings may also apply to consumers searching for homeowners’ insurance policies.
“Mobile consumers are just insurance consumers who happen to prefer using a mobile device,” said Andrew. “While mobile has a slightly younger skew in demographics, they’re still perfectly great insurance customers that agencies should be investing in as greatly as they do desktop platforms.”
Finally, while Revesz and Ressler both encourage brokers to expend the necessary time and resources into developing mobile channels, it should serve as reinforcement to already existing strategies off the web.
“For auto insurance in particular, 71% of consumers start the shopping experience online but 80% still come offline to purchase the product,” said Ressler. “It’s important to have an environment that makes it easier for consumers to transition from online to offline, and the advisors who can do that gracefully will be the most successful.”
