Home Insurance Websites Are a 'Waste of Money' According to Report
London, United Kingdom, March 23, 2015 (Newswire.com) - A new report into the usability of home insurance sites has branded them a £1billion waste that don’t meet customers needs.
The damning revelation comes from Europe’s leading digital insight service, WhatUsersDo.com, who estimate that 20% of the home insurance industry’s digital marketing spend (estimated at over £1billion annually) is frittered away on useless upgrades that the customer doesn’t find beneficial.
WhatUsersDo.com’s new report How Users Search For Home Insurance 2015, released today (23rd March 2015) examined just how “smooth” UK homeowners found the experience of getting home insurance quotes online. It uncovered a raft of basic frustrations on home insurance providers’ websites, with more than a fifth abandoning their searches on provider sites. Main reasons included:
● Website landing pages taking too long to load
● Poorly designed online quote application forms
● Intrusive online cross-selling that eroded customer trust
● Poor and confusing website navigation
● Lack of compelling and relevant content.
“What’s most surprising in the report is that all of the ‘showstopper’ problems’ are avoidable,” said Lee Duddell, Director of UX at WhatUsersDo
“With more than 20m UK consumers spending an average of £400 on buildings and contents insurance last year, it’s really astonishing that, in this highly competitive market, insurance provider websites perform so poorly. For every pound the insurance industry spends on online advertising, it’s fair to say that 20p of it is wasted. Google is the only winner.”
The WhatUsersDo report reveals that no such problems exist on aggregated comparison sites, such as MoneySupermarket.com and CompareTheMarket.com. Lee Duddell added “These sites offered the smoothest journeys with the fewest issues. Given comparison sites were ‘born digital’ this is no great surprise. It’s fair to assume their significant investment in digital marketing is spent more efficiently than direct providers.”
Despite these findings, the report reveals that ‘lowest price’ remains the most popular reason the customer plumps for one particular provider, with 31% confessing they simply go for the lowest price.
However, the WhatUsersDo.com findings come with a warning in the ‘race to the bottom’. Lee Duddell added “That price is top of the list must be a concern for comparison sites especially as their public image, of providing the cheapest price, is currently under scrutiny and likely to erode trust. With a proper investment in reducing the show-stoppers identified, 2015 could be the year that direct providers can start to take back control again. Simples.”
WhatUsersDo.com is a market leading UX Testing service used by organisations such as Aldermore, Aviva, TescoBank, Standard Life, Virgin Atlantic, Pan Macmillan and Government departments to radically improve their understanding of peoples’ digital experiences and to drive digital improvement through insight. Visit www.whatusersdo.com for more information.
Media information: Nathan Bethell, Head of Marketing, WhatUsersDo Ltd
Nathan@whatusersdo.com
Tel 0207 036 1950
WhatUsersDo Ltd, United House, North Road, London, N7 9DP
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