Progressive Unveils Online Homeowners Insurance Comparison Shopper

Borrowing from its own auto insurance model, Progressive is announcing a tool called HomeQuote Explorer, an online platform that allows homeowners to quickly compare home insurance quotes from multiple carriers.

The insurer says it takes 15 minutes or less to get most quotes.

“This might sound familiar because it’s the formula we used to put the power of comparison shopping in the hands of auto insurance customers in 1996,” said Progressive CEO Tricia Griffith. “We think HomeQuote Explorer will compel a lot of homeowners to take a few minutes to make sure they’re getting the right coverage at the right rate.”

The platform pulls in publicly available information on a property automatically to save the homeowner time, and has a series of prompts to help the user enter other required information, according to Dan Witalec, the insurer’s customer acquisition leader.

“For example,” said Witalec, “many people don’t know whether they have a gable, mansard, hip or gambrel roof. But HomeQuote Explorer uses photos of roof types to help homeowners quickly identify what they have. We wanted to make this easy.”

He said the platform will “keep getting smarter” and the insurer will add new features to make it even easier to get home insurance quotes online.

Progressive is the fourth largest auto insurer and one of the top 20 homeowners carriers; it writes homeowners through its subsidiary ASI that it acquired in 2015.

Answer Financial, an online personal lines insurance agency owned by Allstate, also just expanded its comparison platform to include homeowners and condo insurance. Shoppers can compare rates and customize coverages from multiple homeowner insurers including Progressive’s ASI.

Source: Progressive

Topics Carriers New Markets Homeowners