The life insurance quote business online is booming. Not only are life insurance agents quoting a more diverse portfolio of companies, but consumers are also now able to quote life insurance online for themselves. In this article, I will analyze the impact of the life insurance online quote on the insurance industry, the insurance broker, and the consumer looking for insurance. In the not so distant past, life insurance was sold, not bought. The typical agent would travel door to door, network locally, and perhaps meet with potential policyholders for dinner at their home. The debit agent was also a common profession. These agents would actually go to their clients and collect the premium on a weekly basis. The life insurance quote came from a person back then, not a computer. These days, consumers can go online for a life insurance quote. The ability to readily compare the cost of life insurance among hundreds of life insurance companies has dramatically changed the environment. The biggest impact to the insurance industry is the fact that the cost of coverage has decreased significantly. This is good for the client, but is in effect shutting smaller companies down as the claims to revenue ratio is converging. Another impact is the fact that when consumers get an online life insurance quote, they are rarely coached as to what is the better deal for them. Often times, term life insurance is the only product that they are offered. The customer is not being told about the advantages of whole life insurance or the flexibility of universal life insurancethey are often just given a term life insurance quote as requested. The life insurance agent of past would have talked to the client and done some fact finding before selling them something that may not fit their particular situation. The online Life Insurance Quote industry has also affected the independent insurance broker. Often times, the local broker is not trusted with the quote because the consumer has gone online and gotten a cheaper quote from an online quote service. Misquotes are usually the result of the lack of fact finding on the part of the online insurance quote companies. Customers would be much better off dealing with a licensed life insurance agent (who can broker any company out there; whatever suits the customer best) for their life insurance quotes. So the next time you go online looking for the best term life insurance rate, consider that you may be making a mistake by dealing with a call center. Consider that the life insurance quote that you are receiving is only from the companies that they carry. Consider calling on an independent life insurance broker for your term, whole life, and universal life insurance needs and information. |
