Agent reviews to launch in the First Quarter of 2019
Insurance ratings and review platform, Clearsurance, has announced that it will begin featuring insurance agent profiles on its platform starting in the First Quarter of 2019.
“Ratings and reviews of agents is a critical link to providing a holistic offering to empower insurance consumers who rely upon insurance to protect their most valuable assets,” said Michael Crowe, Clearsurance CEO and co-founder. “We’re excited to bring transparency to the agent and agency space and allow consumers a way to find a highly rated agent in their area if they prefer to buy through an agent.”
Select agent reviews affiliated with both Security First and Horace Mann will be the first to roll out on the platform. Both insurers are subscribers to Clearsurance.
With the addition of agent profiles to its platform, Clearsurance will now offer the ability for consumers to review companies involved in all three insurance buying methods – via agents, carriers, and third party sellers. The decision to include agent reviews was an easy one for the Massachusetts based company, it listened to its customers leaving reviews on the platform. According to internal data, in 2018, approximately 37 percent of insurance consumers who wrote a review on the Clearsurance platform indicated that they had used an agent in order to either source or buy their insurance.
Unlike other rating and review platforms, like J.D. Powers, Clearsurance does not aggregate its reviews. In Agency Checklists 2016 interview with Clearsurance Co-founders Michael Crowe and Todd Kozikowski explained the difference this way:
They [J.D. Power] will aggregate ratings based on the surveys that they conduct, but you’re not able to actually see what consumers are saying. They only show scores and ratings. I’m not being critical of J.D. Power; they’re a great company. They do important work, but consumers have come to expect more than just a list of aggregated rankings.
I think they [consumers] want to see what other consumers like them are actually saying about their experience with their insurance company. That capability did not exist in the marketplace until we launched. People accept that there is a lot of power in the wisdom of the crowd, and I think crowd-sourced platforms are here to stay. They have proven their viability in many other industries, and we don’t think insurance will be any different.
Clearsurance has always stressed that it is a neutral, unbiased platform, crowd-sourcing the voices of the consumer. As the company grows in reviews both for carriers and agents, agents should be away of this new feature that may now track how their agency is doing.
To learn more about Clearsurance News
Based in Massachusetts, Clearsurance first launched its online insurance ratings and review platform in 2016. As one of the first to cover this new insurance, Agency Checklists has the opportunity to interview the co-founders and how they came to found Clearsurance. For those interested in reviewing the article, please refer to the April 2017 profile entitled, “A Clear-Eyed Look At The Insurance Industry, Courtesy of Mass.-Based Clearsurance.”
