Comments on: The Auto Insurers’ $4.6 Billion* Opportunity: Massachusetts

By: rghins

rghins — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:27:44 +0000

this is a quite interesting point for all the auto insurers. this will definitely boost the sale.

By: Insurance Marketing

Insurance Marketing — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:29:31 +0000

Great article. Our clients (independent insurance agents) are definitely felling the effect of Geico and are realizing they need to be more competitive in the online space.

By: ltr

ltr — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:49:16 +0000

Deregulation is a good thing and should have occurred years ago. The best way to lower rates for consumers in the state.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:11:22 +0000

I think the true measure of how Mass auto insurance is would be State Marektshare by Carrier as of 4/1/08 then repost on 4/1/09. Does anyone have the current marketshare by carrier?

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 01:12:52 +0000

I’m sure as happened in New Jersey, auto insurance companies will flood the Massachusetts market. I think this is good for consumers because competition causes rates to decrease and consumers benefit. I thought that Massachusetts already allowed carriers to file for their own rares because sites like http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com already do offer rate comparisons in Massachusets.

By: Todd

Todd — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:51:06 +0000

Geico and Progrsive don’t actually compete in MA, so I highly doubt that the author has attempted to “measure competition.” What he has measured is consumer interest… and quite aptly too. The only thing flawed here is your suggestion that the author is trying to say something, which the rest of us can quite clearly see he is not trying to say.

By: Livingston

Livingston — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:50:05 +0000

I live in Massachusetts and just read this piece. Thanks for the great information and showing how the web can track how the playing field changes. I disagree with Jay. Using website traffic is a great measure of competition. Here’s a great example: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/circuitcity.com+bestbuy.com/?metric=uv. I just read an article on how Best Buy creamed Circuit City over the holidays and the graph shows why. Circuit City website traffic actually declined in December - the busiest retail month of the year!

By: luxury

luxury — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 05:48:01 +0000

Interesting piece, in more detail could you analyze HOW those visitors are finding those sites?

Are they coming via SERPs, PPCs, Offline print Media, commercials?

By: Bryan at Compete

Bryan at Compete — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:24:59 +0000

Thanks for your interest in this topic, Jay. For all of these data points, we’re measuring “people counts” (unqiue monthly visitors). We’ve used unique visitors at the domain level for GEICO and Progressive simply to underscore the growing interest in these companies over the past five years. Certainly we can measure other types of activity (online quoting, account managers, etc.), but in this post we’re just considering the “big picture.” If you’re unclear on how we derive our analytics for unique visitors, I encourage you to visit our FAQ page at http://www.compete.com/help#snp3.

The growth chart indicates year-over-year growth of unique visitors (not visits), but the point is really that the interest among Massachusetts visitors is spreading at a faster pace than the national average. Perhaps because premiums are higher, and consumers have fewer choice of providers.

I’m not sure I understand your third point about market share compared to the method in which they received it. If you’d like to clarify, I’ll be glad to comment.

By: Jay

Jay — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:05:19 +0000

I think this article has some flawed analysis.

Using visitors to a website as a measure of competition is a weak and unreliable metric. The definition of a visitor is not given and the intrinsic weakness of that sort of data is well documented elsewhere.

In addition, the charts don’t give proper scales. The growth chart does not tell me whether it’s measuring growth year over year or whether it’s showing growth with number of total visits having grown year over year.

A more reliable analysis would include share of the market that GEICO and Progressive took compared to the method in which they received it. That is a better metric than how the customer came through the door, even if that data is harder to find.