Insurance: Nevada On-Line Quote Firm Eyeing Banks

The QuickQuote Insurance Agency, a two-year-old company that offers Internet quotes and comparisons for term life insurance and fixed annuities, says it is slowly but surely establishing itself with banks.

The Incline Village, Nev., company has nearly a dozen banks signed up. Though QuickQuote has several competitors-such as Marketing One in Portland, Ore., and Coverdell & Co. in Atlanta-it claims to be the first on-line quote service.

And it's believed to have the most bank customers of any on-line quote service. The company, which also sells directly from its home page and through brokerages and independent agents, should break even within about two months, said Debra J. Wager, its senior vice president of marketing.

Adding more profitable insurance products will bring further success in coming months, she predicted. Ms. Wager's husband, Daniel J. Wager, 43, is QuickQuote's president. Banks, which account for as much as half of QuickQuote's business, are ambivalent about on-line quote services even as they embrace them.

Andrea Martin, president of Comerica Insurance Services in Detroit, said QuickQuote has a "great reputation" but added that the bank signed on in May largely as a hedge in case the business takes off. "All of it is really in its infancy at this point," said Ms. Martin.

Kenneth Kehrer, an insurance consultant in Princeton, N.J., said the on- line quote service could be a big revenue generator one day, but "so far it hasn't been."

Still, institutions like Mellon Bank, Greensburg, Pa., Amsouth Bank, Birmingham, Ala., and Huntington National Bank, Columbus, Ohio, have signed up with QuickQuote.

QuickQuote's Web site uses quotes only from highly rated carriers, but the bank sites are custom-made to include each bank's carriers. Customers simply call up the site, type in personal data, and get price quotes within seconds. Those without computers may telephone QuickQuote and have its employees read them quotes.

QuickQuote gets commissions on sales, and banks get a cut. Ms. Wager declined to say what the company's revenues are.

QuickQuote's climb has had its bumps, said Michael Levison, chief executive of Coverdell. Coverdell was an investor in QuickQuote but pulled out because of "personal conflicts and conflicts in business strategy," he said. It set up a competing service, RightQuote, that Mr. Levison said offers more consumer education content.

And he pointed out that QuickQuote has lost two big clients-First Chicago NBD Corp. to RightQuote and First Union Corp., Charlotte, N.C., which is building its own on-line quote service.

A First Chicago spokesman said the bank is trying to trim its roster of providers. QuickQuote was dropped only because the banking company has long done other marketing work with Coverdell, he said.

Ms. Wager dismissed concern about the losses, suggesting that QuickQuote has been so successful that others want to try to duplicate it.

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