The number of internet searches for insurance products in April dropped 11 per cent on January's volume. And despite the extreme weather, home insurance, saw the biggest dip. There were 1.6 million insurance-related searches on Google UK in April compared to January's 1.9 million.
Home insurance-related queries, which totalled 187,144 searches, saw the largest drop. They were 22 per cent down on January's 240,476. However, with more than 40 flood warnings in place across the UK, homeowners are being warned about the future of their insurance. This together with premiums expected to rise could well fuel searches.
It was a similar story for car insurance. April's search volumes were down 13 per cent on January's 1.1 million.
However, the picture was different for travel insurance. Search volumes held up and remained at the 482,000 mark.
Table 1: Number of Insurance searches by type - April 2012
|
SUBSECTOR |
NUMBER OF SEARCHES JANUARY 2012
|
NUMBER OF SEARCHES APRIL 2012 |
% DIFFERENCE JAN-APR 2012 |
|
Car |
1,182,760 |
1,030,376 |
-13% |
|
Travel |
482,370 |
482,021 |
-0.07% |
|
Home |
240,476 |
187,144 |
-22% |
|
TOTAL |
1,905,606 |
1,699,541 |
-11% |
Source: Greenlight
Other key findings from the report revealed that:
- Searches for car insurance-related keywords were the most popular, accounting for 61% of all insurance searches
- Queried 450,000 times and accounting for a 26 per cent share of all insurance searches, the term 'car insurance' was the most popular
- MoneySupermarket was the most visible website in the natural search* listings, achieving an 89 per cent share of voice
- GoCompare was the most visible advertiser in the paid media** space with a 56 per cent share of voice
- Money Saving Expert ranked at the top of Greenlight's social media league table.
