Best Practices for building Insurance Websites - Part 1

As the Insurance Industry becomes more competitive and product offerings more complex there is a growing need for customers to do more research before they decide on what product they need to buy.

While Customers today are willing to buy certain categories of Insurance online such as Travel or Automotive insurance the Internet is yet primarily a channel for Research. However, researching on the Web often doesn’t translate into a policy application through any channel. Low conversion rates are the result of a complex product and a low-commitment research channel.

Life insurance as an example won’t see the same online sales success that auto insurers will enjoy. However the web can prove a useful channel to promote the prospect to the next level and lead to applications through other channels.

In a survey done in the US by Forrester Research in 2007 it was seen that of the 3 million Americans who have researched life insurance during the past year, more than one in three used the Internet to do so, making it the second most popular research channel after researching in person.

Insurance companies need to clearly identify & understand the objectives and purpose their websites serve.Assuming that the website can become a huge Point of Sale is not only a false expectation but it can also ignore the need for providing information that will enable prospects to conduct research and maybe even fill out an enquiry form

So the question really is – What should Insurance Websites focus on that would make them “successful”? “Successful”being the loaded and operative word here! So let’s start

Step 1: Identify the Goals for the website

Step 2: Understand your Target Audience

Step 3: Identify Strategies that will lead to achieving these Goals

Step 4: Define “Measures of Success” against each Goal


Let’s start with Step 1– Identifying the Goals for the website

For most insurance companies the goals could be summed up into the following

1. Customer Acquisition - Both lead generation and sales in some cases

2. Customer Retention – Servicing existing customers

3. Agent Recruitment – The agent network is the primary sales channel and hence there is strong focus on this area

4. Employee Acquisition – the website could be a large source of resumes

5. Brand Promotion – last but not least this is every Marketers objective. To not only promote the brand online but also create recall and align with offline promotion activities


Along with defining your goals it is also critical to prioritize them. This is very useful when it comes to allocating real estate and defining content focus on the website

Stay Tuned for – Step 2 – Understand your Target Audience

by Subir Singh (subir.singh@edynamic.net)