The internet has made the insurance sector super-competitive
These days, you can get insured for almost anything and the world wide web has helped fashion a highly transparent and competitive market place for insurance providers. You are required by law to have certain insurance such as car insurance or medical insurance in certain jurisdictions. Other insurance not required by law is viewed by most customers as a ‘must have’ such as travel insurance or insurance for corporate property and business assets. There is then another type of product aimed with the needs of consumers in mind that is highly specialised such as pet policies, wedding insurance or Insurance for adventure holidays or extreme sports. Either in the high street or on the internet, companies offer varying rates and excesses depending on various factors. A secondary market also exists for the services of insurance brokers who shop around for products at the behest of their corporate or consumer clients. Underwriters are another group of agents operating in the insurance industry.
This is where the insurance venture’s risks are calculated and the underwriter determines the correct pricing arrangement for the insurance services or whether the agreement is viable at all. To take the example of car insurance, the underwriter would assess the driver’s accident record. In medical insurance, another example might be where the patient’s medical records are examined. The internet is certainly helping helps the insurance market remain competitive and transparent but some customers are still finding themselves uninsured when they most need it. Extreme winter sports insurance demonstrates this well. It is reported that more than half of travelers to ski resorts are uninsured and although the other half do, only a quarter of them are in fact covered for skiing and snowboarding which are classified by most insurers as ‘extreme sports’ and not included in their basic cover. Many European travelers also think that their E111 Is good enough for treatment but this is not true in most resorts. A very recent example of The adaptation of the insurance sector is the hot pricing competition between opposing auto insurance companies that has been in the main facilitated by the introduction of price comparison sites. Car insurance is required by law so everyone must purchase it. This puts price up there as the primary competitive factor.
An example of negative activity in the insurance sector was when payment protection insurance policies (PPI’s) were discovered by the FSA to be completely worthless or having been fraudulently marketed. This has caused a storm of litigation from customers and firms actually being set up for the single purpose of acting as agents by which customers can claim back any PPI that might have been missold to them. Compare insurance on the net for the greatest bargain. A further dubious insurance product is internet security insurance that claims to reimburse the customer for any loss as a result of cyber fraud or identity theft. However most customers do not realise that the bank is in most sets of circumstances liable for such acts.