SelectQuote and Its Competitors Broaden the Market and Clarify Products

With a market as incredibly expansive as the life insurance market is; it's foolish to expect the average consumer will make impulse purchases regarding a serious life decision. No single life insurance plan is designed to fit every person's needs. An objective opinion on what policy is best for you is difficult to find amid companies that are primarily concerned with their own profit. SelectQuote is an online service that provides consumers with a realistic understanding of their life insurance options, helping them browse the market to find their best options. Finding the right policy goes well beyond simply choosing the best price, and the average buyer will need the presence of the professional opinion.

Founded in 1985, SelectQuote is the single largest insurance quote service in the US, and has connected consumers with a better understanding of insurance, removing that once opaque barrier between provider and seeker. Users of SelectQuote are able to input their life insurance expectations, as well as provide very basic health info. In return, users receive a good projection on what life insurance options are available to them, and what they can expect to pay for these policies.

SelectQuote is limited in that it only serves US customers, but it's only the first of many that have populated the internet. Other sites have copied SelectQuote's model and have had success offering the same or similar services to entice customers to use their brokerage services. While it still operates as a for-profit business, the SelectQuote model offers some unique advantages that buying life insurance directly does not allow.

The primary draw of this model is impartiality. As companies like SelectQuote represent dozens if not hundreds of life insurance providers, there is little if any incentive for a broker to sell one product over another. By the very nature of the business, they can't favor one provider. This allows the broker site to offer a better range of product options than any provider. It can fairly assess the customer's needs and offer them the best possible deals on a product.

Interconnectivity among insurance providers is nothing but a benefit to customers and the market on a whole. The hegemonic practices of the old establishment meant that potential buyers product choices were limited by their own independent research. Independent brokers were one way to get a customer in contact with life insurance products, but it places the buyer in a selling process that a broker has control over. What products are discussed, and the time of a successful closing, are out of the hands of the buyer and it creates an artificial urgency to buy instead of exploring the buyer's options. Certainly brokers are the qualified professionals in this relationship, and it behooves a life insurance buyer to listen to their advice; their decisions are still informed by their past selling experience and potentially limited product knowledge.