Blog

Quick Life Quote 8th May 2010

One of the challenges faced in selling protection  such as life insurance or critical illness cover is that a large proportion of the general population are not really aware of the benefits of this type of cover or choose to ignore the consequences of neglecting it.

For anyone who has an idea, even if it’s a vague one, that they really should take out insurance perhaps to protect their mortgage payments but haven’t given it more thought than that, a long questionnaire isn’t tremendously appealing. This is especially the case if they happen to be busy with work or family commitments.

To quote for protection does involve asking enough questions to deter the busy or those with a more casual interest. So a solution that provides a simple yet effective strategy is to use a short intro form to hook the visitor. The use of a small first page or “Quick Quote” form to attract more people to have a quick look does help to draw more of a crowd. In their excellent book “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive” Goldstein, Martin and Cialdini describe a principle whereby when you ask someone to agree to something small they will be statistically much more likely to a) agree to the small request and then b) agree to a larger related request that follows, than if asked to carry out the large request on its own.

You could argue that it is a little manipulative to suggest that a quote is possible by answering three or four simple questions. Personally I don’t think this is the case or that there is anything unreasonable or ethically contentious in this approach.

My reasons for the statement above are firstly, the small form doesn’t ask anything personal so when you arrive at the second part of the form you have a choice about whether you wish to continue. The other psychological device this brings in which we have demonstrated working here is that basically in the words of whoever happens to be presenting University Challenge currently “I’ve started so I’ll finish”. There is always a clear choice if someone wishes to drop out - it's just significantly less likely.

My second argument in favour of the Quick Quote relates to a concern one client of ours voiced when he suggested our form wasn’t really a “Quick Quote”. My counter to this was that as the entire form only takes 2-3 minutes before you have a quote on your screen, then compared to phoning a call centre where there may be delays and inevitably the agent still has to complete an online form for you, it is exceptionally quick.

Life Quote Systems offers two Quick Quote form options that will fit a small area on any web page to improve conversion.

If you wish to comment on the above or discuss please use the contact us page of our website.