What Agents Think About Google Compare

The independent agency system is no stranger to competition. But one new competitor in the marketplace has some agents and industry experts on watch.

Google Compare – which stepped into the insurance ring in March – is nothing more than another auto insurance comparison website that misleads consumers, according to Bill Wilson, director of the Virtual University at the Big “I” (Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America).

There have been countless comparison auto insurance sites to hit the market during the past 10 years but the difference now is in the Google name, he says. And with that name comes financial power.

Wilson says that because Google Compare isn’t anything new most independent agents aren’t overly concerned but they probably should be.

“I think most agents aren’t overly concerned, because this isn’t anything new,” Wilson says. “What Google is doing has been done for at least 10 to 20 years now.”

Today there are many different types of comparative rating websites for insurance – ranging from the most common like Progressive Direct, GEICO and Esurance to others like Nerd Wallet, Quote Wizard, Bank Rate, carinsurancecomparison.com, and on and on, he says.

What worries Wilson the most is not the threat that these sites pose to independent agents but instead the risk consumers will face buying their insurance without the professional advice of an agent.

“The big loser in all this is not agents or insurers or anyone else, it’s consumers, because they’re being duped into believing that all of these policies and the service providers are exactly the same – that the only difference is price,” Wilson says.

While Google Compare only deals in comparing auto insurance products, many other sites currently on the market also delve into homeowners insurance.

Some websites go as far as touting a homeowners quote in just two minutes, Wilson says.

“It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” he says. “How can you really help a consumer identify their exposures to loss and match it with the right customized product for those exposures” in two minutes? he asked.

‘Not Their Market’

Wilson says that while there’s a segment of the auto insurance market that doesn’t care where they buy coverage – as long as it’s the cheapest price – that’s not the type of consumer generally targeted by the Big “I” membership.

“In fact, ‘auto insurance only’ isn’t the market of the vast majority of our members,” he said. “These kind of people are gone if they can find something $50 cheaper elsewhere.”

Losing those customers to Google Compare or others doesn’t really matter much to most independent agents, Wilson said. He doesn’t even believe Google will have much effect on independent agent market share – or at least he hopes that it won’t. He expects the captive agency distribution channel to take the biggest hit.

“When you look at the market share report that we produce annually and go back, say, over the last 20 years, back to the early days of the Internet when some of these websites really first got started. The segment that has been affected the most by direct sales – both TV and Internet – is the captive agency channel. They’ve gone from something like almost 60 percent of the auto marketplace to just below 50 percent during that period of time.”

Independent agents have lost some market share, but in Wilson’s opinion, what’s been lost in auto market share were customers that independents just didn’t want. “They just let it go.”

Wilson admits that Google being Google will draw the attention of some consumers.

“Needless to say, since it’s the predominant search engine, depending on how Google markets Google Compare, if you’re searching for something that has the word ‘auto’ or ‘car’ in it, there on the search results, the Google Compare website may show up over and over again. It may drive traffic but I don’t know that it’ll drive additional people to that marketing channel.”

Education

Wilson says a large part of competing against Google Compare and other new industry players resides in education – delivering education on the value that independent agents bring to the insurance transaction.

“It is an educational process and it’s something I’m going to hopefully spend a lot of my time in the next year or longer on starting within our own industry and then moving ultimately to consumers,” Wilson said. “We’re not selling CDs where it doesn’t really matter whether you buy it from Amazon or Best Buy or whatever.” Insurance policies are complex legal contracts, he said, and that’s the first thing that the industry has to get people to understand.

For decades agents have been helping consumers identify critical loss exposures and doing their best to make sure those exposures are properly insured. That’s the message that the industry needs to reinforce to consumers, he said.

Probably the most important service that independent agents provide is a high-level of claim advocacy.

“I spend a lot of my time, almost every day, helping agents who have consumers who have had a claim and either the claim has been denied or not completely covered and the agent feels that the denial is incorrect,” Wilson said. “That’s not something you’re going to get from an online vendor. … With an independent agent, you’re going to have someone going to bat for you, particularly at claim time,” he said.