Most and Least Credible Auto Insurance Sites

Beau Brendler
Director, Consumer Reports WebWatch

An analysis by Consumer Reports WebWatch, ConsumerReports.org and Consumer Reports magazine of the top six auto insurance Web sites raises some concerns about potential bias at one site and questions about how useful these sites are to consumers overall.

The results have just been published in Consumer Reports magazine, and the accompanying Web site ratings were posted on ConsumerReports.org this week. To quote Consumer Reports magazine, "The top six auto-insurance shopping Web sites we examined were…a disappointment. Only one — InsWeb.com — proved useful."

We'll let you review ConsumerReports.org's ratings at your leisure. Our mission here at Consumer Reports WebWatch is to investigate, inform, and improve the quality of information on the Web. We want to describe for you how our analysis of these sites and our mission — printed prominently on the home page of our site — comes together.

First, this is the debut of a new format for e-Ratings at ConsumerReports.org and Consumer Reports. Working together, we created a new, more robust e-Ratings methodology, used for the first time on these auto insurance sites. That methodology now contains criteria derived from Consumer Reports WebWatch's guidelines for improving the credibility of all Web sites. And those guidelines, in turn, were developed with extensive research, including a national telephone survey of 1,500 adult Internet users, as well as the expertise of our advisory board and staff. We created them based on what consumers told us were their greatest concerns about the credibility of Web sites.

Second, applying these abstract — and complex — concepts to the real world of the Web has been enlightening. We have turned our guidelines into tools for statistical analysis using the time-tested, trusted methods of Consumer Reports. We believe they will be a dramatically useful tool for consumers seeking the most trustworthy sites to use, and for Web publishers who seek to make their own sites better. In looking at these six sites, the guidelines took us to the heart of the matter of what makes a site credible.

You'll notice two of the sites — NetQuote.com and Insure.com, whose parent company is Quotesmith — received a less-than-okay rating. Of those, Insure.com received the lowest possible rating for disclosure, which we believe is the most important component for Web site credibility.

We were concerned about the way in which Insure.com disclaimed responsibility for content on its site:

"…While we maintain a staff of professional journalists, we cannot promise that incorrect information will not appear on insure.com, and we are not liable for any damages caused by the appearance of incorrect information on insure.com, whether this information is provided directly by us, a sponsor, or other information provider.

"One of the key tenets of professional journalism is the acceptance of responsibility for the accuracy of information reported and published. Nobody is perfect, of course, and everyone makes mistakes, from the smallest Web sites to the New York Times newspaper. We suggest that sites concerned about the errors bound to occur in a demanding, deadline-driven profession seek simply to correct them as soon as possible — and profess an intent to correct them, rather than disclaming responsibility for them. That's why Consumer Reports WebWatch's fourth guideline encourages Web sites to take responsibility for their errors, and clearly disclose a policy for any consumer problems resulting from inaccurate information.

We were also concerned about a page on the Insure.com site that, on July 16, 2002, during the course of our research, disappeared. On that page had appeared the following text, under the heading, "What Does Insure.com Offer Advertisers?":

"Beyond The Banner Sponsorship Opportunities

Brand integration with our interactive tools will positively enhance perception of the sponsor's brand and drive high quality traffic to its Web presence.
Widely regarded as the top provider of consumer-oriented insurance information, news, and interactive tools on the Internet, Insure.com's commitment to quality is extended to both our audience and clients alike."

Here, Insure.com characterized itself not only as a provider of consumer-oriented insurance information, news, and interactive tools on the Internet, but as the top provider. Further down this page, however, under the heading "Banner Advertising" is a section noting that "Insure.com offers two types of 'Beyond the Banner' sponsorships: Interactive Tool Sponsorships and Advertorials."

The site went on to describe what these are:

"An Interactive Tool Sponsorship incorporates the sponsor's logo into the interface of an insure.com interactive tool that provides data related to the sponsor's business, and places a contextually relevant link at the end of all tool results pages. The sponsorship can be enhanced through the inclusion of the Sponsor's logo in house ads that promote the tool. Our suite of interactive tools includes (click to view the tool live on our site):
Car Crash Performance Tool
Consumers Guide to Repair Parts Laws
California Earthquake Authority Rate Finder
Insurance Company Guide
Insurance Company Complaint Finder
Life Insurance Needs Estimator
Guide to Workers Compensation Laws
Health Insurance Laws and Benefits
Life Insurance and Annuity Tax Tool
Small Business Liability Tool"

Is the consumer to understand, then, that interactive tools on the Insure.com site created by site staff, ostensibly with objective data, can be "tailored" with the appearance of a corporate logo and contextual cues seeking to identify the data with a sponsor? Could this create confusion among readers seeking objective, interactive information? What does it mean that the tool would provide "data related to the sponsor's business"? Related by its nature, or, in fact, actually provided by that business?

Even further down this page, Insure.com described the other "Beyond the Banner" sponsorship option, "advertorial," an industry term used to describe a paid advertisement that, in some way, is created to resemble the context of its surrounding pages. In other words, an advertisement that looks like editorial content:

"An Advertorial is content that is provided by your company and hosted on Insure.com. The advertorial is promoted from within the content area on the index page of the appropriate section. The use of all advertising positions on the page hosting your advertorial is included in the sponsorship."

We hope that sites that choose to run advertorials — and the number is increasing, among them some very high-profile Web sites — do so recognizing their duty to the consumer. That's why Consumer Reports WebWatch's second guideline, on advertising and sponsorships, addresses the issues of transparency and fairness. We're not asking sites not to publish "advertorials." But we do recommend that they are labeled and contextualized in such a way that the reader is not fooled, and that the site's editorial staff is not asked to write them.

Our own research has shown us that consumers are very concerned that advertising and editorial content be kept separate and distinct on Web sites — and that sites who play with the distinction do so at risk to their long-term credibility.