For the most part, insurance policyholders are more likely to simply renew a policy without much effort when it comes up for renewal than to actively search for a better deal, according to new data from YouGov. However, close to 1 in 3 policyholders will use that time to look, typically using friends and family and price comparison sites for information.
The survey indicates that between 30% (auto insurance) and 33% (home insurance) of policyholders actively search for a better deal when their policy comes up for renewal. That excludes mobile phone insurance policyholders, who seem much more active in their searches: 44% report actively looking for a better policy at renewal time, compared to 32% who are inactive. That’s likely due to more frequent turnover in mobile phone ownership necessitating more changes on the insurance side.
When searching for an insurance policy, consumers most commonly turn to their friends and family, with 3 in 10 respondents saying that they always or normally use word-of-mouth to find policies. Close behind, more than one-quarter (28%) typically use price comparison websites, while one-quarter typically visit the websites of insurers or brokers that they know.
Advertising, by contrast, isn’t a primary information vehicle, at least not in the active sense. Just 7% said they typically search for policies by looking through ads or newsletters received in the mail, and 5% said the same about ads or newsletters sent by email.
A study released last year from Nielsen found that more than 80% of US adults have auto insurance, while home/renters insurance ranges from a low of 63% among Millennials to a high of 80% among the Silent generation.
