Insurance Blog

I haven’t done much blogging this month but with January 1 renewals you probably haven’t done much reading. So, in the spirit of the Christmas Season I am going to keep this light.
I recently read an op-ed piece by Brian Campbell in the Wall Street Journal entitled Time for Santa 2.0. Brian states that kids are far too sophisticated for the Santa that you and I, and the generations… [Read Full Story]

In 2002 Google Product search encroached on Amazon, Ebay Shopzilla, and The Find. Then, in 2005 Google Maps encroached upon MapQuest and in 2006 Google Finance was released as competition to Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, and AOL Money. In 2009 it was Google Health competing with Web MD and Mayo Clinic. In 2010 Google Boutiques went after Ebay and Amazon…again and Google Hotspot started to offer the same service offered… [Read Full Story]

The other day I interviewed Karen Furtado of Strategy Meets Action (SMA) on the Top Ten Imperatives for Insurers in 2011 for an upcoming issue of Insurance Unplugged. The number-one driving force of most of these imperatives (based on insurer input) comes down to data and using it to understand markets, distribution, consumers, product delivery, intelligent underwriting, communication, and much more. And although data and analytics have always been seen… [Read Full Story]

I read recently where life insurance companies are testing data-based underwriting to replace the traditional nurse visits, EKGs, blood and urine tests in order to cut the per policy underwriting cost from around $1,000.00 per policy to around $100.00 per policy. It sounds good to me. My brother and I recently completed a buy-sell agreement that is funded by life insurance. Life insurance companies say their biggest sales obstacle is… [Read Full Story]

Twellow isn’t new – it’s been around well over a year – but many insurance companies and agents are still not on it. With being the major Twitter directory of people, over 30.5 million Twitter users have registered, it’s one of the best ways for people to search for friends, family, and businesses they support. Twitter does have a ‘People Search’ function, yes, but it’s not that great. Twellow’s search… [Read Full Story]

In optimization, the Home Page was the ‘sweet’ landing page for a long time – but that’s changed in recent years. Now with Google’s recent update it’s even more important to optimize every page of your website as a possible landing page.
As users of Google, it’s great to see them offering more than one link from the same website in the relevant search results. As a business owner with… [Read Full Story]

If you’re just starting with optimizing your website, the first step is selecting proper keywords. However, there is one setting in Google Keyword Tool that can help you determine the most targeted keywords for your insurance company:  Broad, Phrase and Exact Match targeting options in the Google Keyword Tool.  When you first start searching for keywords you might find the monthly Global Search numbers are larger for the ‘Broad’ search… [Read Full Story]

If you have been putting off redesigning your site, it might be time to reevaluate priorities. Just for clarification, Google Instant Previews is the little magnifying glass to the right of the search result. Once you click on it viola you get a first look at the actual page and you know what they say about first impressions.
 
The idea behind the feature is to facilitate a better user… [Read Full Story]

Google.com/Hotpot is a new, fully integrated recommendation engine. Integrated? Well, because it’s Google, it can:

Remember your searches: if you searched in Google or Google Maps for a location, Hotpot will remember and bring it up when you go there.
Rate on the Go: if you’ve downloaded the Google Maps app for Android, then you have the Google Hotpot already installed. The app will incorporate your search results and allow… [Read Full Story]

Facebook just announced Facebook messages which combines email SMS, and chat in a single format. In addition to the new messaging, FB is also offering its own version of Microsoft’s Office Suite, called Facebook Docs, which means you will be able to open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents using your new messaging system. We care about this because we are seeing a huge increase in opt-in registrations using personal email… [Read Full Story]