Spain leads in insurance purchases via mobile devices

January 17, 2013 at 05:49 AM

Share & Print

Spain is leading a group of six European countries in the utilization of mobile phones and tablets for insurance purchases.

As carriers here in the U.S. struggle with declining yields from investments due to a prolonged low interest rate environment, they may begin contemplating alternative distribution models that minimize costs and cater to the tech savvy youth. In short, making insurance purchases with a mobile device may be the wave of the future.

Finaccord, the London-based market research and consulting company recently released the finding after conducting an online survey of over 6,000 people from six major European countries. The countries, France; Germany; Italy; Poland; Spain and the UK all had varying results.

Consumers in Spain were most likely to make an insurance purchase (life, household or other) through their mobile phone or tablet computer. For these types of insurance, 34.2 percent of respondents in Spain said that they often use mobile phones or tablets. Spain's high numbers are more than twice the combined average of all of the countries surveyed which came in at 16.1 percent. Interestingly, Germans only used mobile phones or tablets 6.9 percent of the time for these purchases.

As one would expect, the use of these devices to purchase insurance products varies by age. Consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 were much more likely to use make insurance purchases via mobile phones and tablets. Consumers between 18 and 34 used these devices 29.7 percent of the time while consumers aged 35-54 were not that far behind, using them 19.3 percent of the time. Consumers aged 55 and up used them only 11.5 percent of the time.

NOT FOR REPRINT