The Internet has revolutionized the traditional insurance industry which once relied heavily on a large staff and network of agents to sell and service policies. There was a time in the industry when everything depended on paper streams passing through many different hands to achieve results. Now that this is no longer necessary-how does that affect you, the consumer?

Over the last ten years, advertizing spending rose significantly but the spend slowly shifted from the traditional print and broadcast media, to niche marketing and the internet. This general growth was fueled by competition for market share and, because the insurance industry was highly profitable, more money could be diverted to the marketing budget. Today, the level of spending cannot be maintained. In fact, it has slowed quite significantly over the last eighteen months. There are two reasons for this.

There is no question that the world economy is in the throes of a difficult credit crunch and combined with rising commodity prices, consumer confidence is crumbling. This is having a severe affect on the auto insurance market which depends on a number of factors, like the number of vehicles sold, for its profits.