Auto Insurers Fail The Cross-Channel Test

As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted in a while. That’s what happens during vacations. But I’m back from holiday and am ready to get going again. Let’s start with a look at auto insurance experiences…

I recently published a report called Auto Insurers’ Cross-Channel Experience, 2009 that took a closer look at cross channel evaluations of four large auto insurers: 21st Century Insurance, Allstate Insurance, Geico, and State Farm. Here were some of the findings:

• Geico led the insurers with an overall score of 13, State Farm lagged behind with a -33 (the lowest score across all industries we evaluated)
  • To put that in context, a passing score is 57
• These insurers, as a group, lagged behind other industries in the following categories of our evaluation:
  • Web site value
  • Web site navigation
  • IVR navigation
  • Email value
  • Email trust 
• We found 9 areas of severe failures:
  • State Farm: Web site value, Web site navigation, Email value, Email presentation, and Email trust.
  • Allstate: IVR navigation, Email value, and channel transition continuity.
  • Geico: Email trust
• Despite the problems, we also found some good practices:
  • Allstate’s virtual agent explains insurance options.
  • Geico’s Web site content demystifies the claims process.
  • State Farm lets users easily sends online quotes to an agent.
  • 21st Century’s IVR menus maps to user goals.
  • 21st Century’s emails create clear paths to other channels.

The bottom line: Auto insurance experiences have room for improvement.