Fidelity.com, Fidelity Investments' Web site, has started an official insurance center, powered by its Insurance.com, in a bid to sell term life insurance, annuities, and other insurance products to its 17 million online brokerage customers.
Insurance.com is a stand-alone insurance sales and information Web site owned by Fidelity.
Because these Fidelity customers are already comfortable doing their investing online, "it's a natural extension to have these individuals purchase insurance online," said Lou Geremia, president of Insurance.com in Newton, Mass.
Fidelity.com's insurance center offers information pegged to life-stage needs concerning life insurance and auto, home, and health coverage. It also gives online quotes for auto and homeowner policies.
Through the site, customers can initiate purchases from Fidelity's lines of fixed and variable annuities and term life insurance, which had been available on the site before. They can also initiate purchases from three new product lines - auto, homeowners, and health - from outside carriers such as AIG, Travelers, Hartford, Progressive, and Nationwide. In some cases, customers can also complete the purchases, as well, depending on the carrier Mr. Geremia said.
He said he plans to broaden the line of annuities available at the insurance center and add access to long-term-care insurance.
The Insurance.com site was started by Fidelity in June 1999 as an online insurance marketplace, with the eventual intention of being a site for selling coverage to Fidelity's online customers, Mr. Geremia said. But since March it has been a stand-alone site, with 100,000 visitors per month.
Insurance.com has also formed partnerships with outside financial services providers such as NetBank, giving it the ability to offer online insurance products on these providers' sites. Insurance.com's expanded relationship with Fidelity.com will not change its relationships with these outside partners, Mr. Geremia said. It will continue to form such alliances, he said, but will steer clear of links with direct competitors of Fidelity such as Schwab.
Mr. Geremia emphasized that the online insurance sales environment is evolving. However, he said, as it becomes more entrenched as a distribution channel, more carriers will allow transactions to be completed online, and Web sales volume will rise. He said he hopes the Insurance.com site will attract several hundred thousand Fidelity customers within the next year.
"My sense is, the next wave of online insurance distribution is going to be through the major financial services providers," he said. "That's going to make it a lot more enticing for insurance carriers" to get involved.
