Consumer Interest in TrustedChoice.com Growing

Insurance consumer interest in Trusted Choice, the national brand created for the members of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA or Big “I”) is growing, according the association’s chair-elect.

David Walker, president of Hartland Insurance Agency in Hartland, Mich., and the incoming volunteer leader of the Big “I,” said before the association launched Project Cap, the consumer/agent portal intended to drive online referrals to independent agent members of the IIABA, hits to its TrustedChoice.com website enjoyed a lackluster two-to-three thousand hits per month.

When Project CAP was first launched in July 2013, the two “were on very separate tracks,” Walker told an audience of insurance professionals at the recent convention held by the Independent Insurance Agents of Texas in San Antonio.

Now, Walker said, “Trusted Choice has become the face of Project CAP” and the hits to trustedchoice.com since the launch of the portal “have gone through the roof.”

Hits to the website are growing by about 10 to 20 percent each month, Walker said. In May 2014, the site recorded 152,000 hits.

Walker said in the beginning Project CAP had a lot of skeptics, himself included. He said many people were concerned about the kinds of consumers who would be attracted to the marketplace and that method of buying insurance.

But, he said, the demographics for the personal lines-focused marketing effort “are way off the charts.”

As it turns out, more than 40 percent of referrals have been for values in excess of $30,000; more than 50 percent are married; more than 60 percent of referrals are picking maximum limits of liability and only 16 percent are picking minimum limits of liability.

“What that’s telling us is that we’re getting the referrals that we want,” Walker said. “The testimonials for the referrals have been spectacular.”

Another unexpected development in the Trusted Choice/Project Cap effort is that even though the initial focus has been on personal lines of insurance, there is a growing interest in commercial lines, he said.

The association has taken notice and will be ramping up the focus on commercial lines later this year.

He urged agency principals to go online and sign up for trustedchoice.com. “We need to get you signed up, so that you show up on that trustedchoice.com website, so that you get the referrals,” Walker said.