The finding that traditional insurers are strong competitors to Web-based carriers in terms of usability was one of the many findings in a report issued by the firm, said Steve Ellis, partner and founder of the three-year-old firm. He said Change Sciences primary job is to evaluate consumer usability with online technology and develop ways to make it better. The firm uses a consumer evaluation modeling program it developed, named Typifi, to measure the experience.

“To be able to benchmark yourself with your competitor is a critical thing to be able to do,” Mr. Ellis observed.

While working for years with financial service companies on an individual basis, the firm said it decided to begin evaluating different markets. The report benchmarks companies against their competitors. This is something, he said, that would be very expensive for any individual corporation to do using the traditional focus group methods.

The report breaks down ease of use into different experiences ranging from reading text to scrolling, typing in data and getting the desired quote.

The Web site carrier ranking is a measurement of how easy it is for a customer to use the carriers automobile quoting system based on the results from Change Sciences modeling program.

While Esurance came out first overall, Mr. Ellis pointed out, in some specific areas of the experience GEICO surpassed Esurance.

Mr. Ellis said the independent report is “totally unbiased, and we pull no punches based on any preexisting client relationships we may have. Our whole reputation is based on us being an objective third party, and we take that pretty seriously,” he noted.

This is the first of what is intended to be a quarterly survey of online carriers. From a technology standpoint, he said, changes occur so quickly that the firm believes such reports would be useful on an ongoing basis. He added that different carriers also would be examined in the report.

For information about Change Science, or to purchase the report, go to www.changesciences.com or e-mail [email protected].

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, August 25, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.