Carriers Add Online Payment Flexibility, Balance Digital and Live Agent Service, and Broaden Spanish-Language Support

Progressive Leads Keynova Group's Semi-Annual Online Insurance Scorecard

WILMINGTON, Del., June 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Keynova Group, the principal competitive intelligence source for digital financial services firms, today announced the results of the Q2 2026 edition of its semi-annual Online Insurance Scorecard, an evaluation of 12 of the largest U.S. auto and property insurance carriers' website capabilities and support. Progressive maintains its first-place overall ranking for delivering the best online user experience.

The latest Scorecard findings highlight carriers' efforts to expand online payment features, establish an effective mix of digital assistant and live customer support and improve Spanish-language experiences through translations of product content, authenticated servicing and policyholder support.

"As digital experiences become increasingly sophisticated and curated, consumers expect their insurance providers to continue advancing online proficiencies," said Beth Robertson, managing director, Keynova Group. "Carriers are responding in a variety of ways, including by deepening premium payments capabilities, streamlining pathways between self-service, digital assistance and live support, and investing in Spanish-language content and services to strengthen policyholder acquisition and retention."

Key Findings:

Carriers Enhance Online Premium Payment Elements
Since premium payments are a recurring policyholder touchpoint, some carriers are simplifying related tasks such as auto-pay enrollment and adding flexibility with online features like payment date or plan selection, detailed payment history, and filtering options. One emerging capability, now available from 25% of carriers, enables policyholders to use aggregation technology to share external payment account information such as routing and account numbers or card details, which can be securely accessed directly by the insurer for policy payment purposes. Expanding consumer adoption of payment options like PayPal or Venmo or digital wallets, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay or Paze, is also encouraging close to 20% of carriers to offer premium payment or policy purchases using one of these alternatives. And the rising popularity of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) amid the current tight economy indicates that consumers may also be receptive to options that break payments into smaller components than the traditional monthly or annual premiums. USAA enables twice monthly automatic payments as an option and, further, allows policyholders to temporarily pause their automatic payments if needed.

Balancing Digital and Live Support for Servicing and Retention 
While the use of website-based digital assistants and other self-service tools has become more widespread as carriers seek to improve digital resources and reduce customer support expenses, live agents or customer service staff remain valuable for assisting with complex inquiries. Finding the optimal balance between support alternatives requires attention to query volume, topical focus and outcomes. Today's digital assistants typically enable basic tasks and information requests, with one-third of firms using a predictive model based on a user's contextual site location and presenting likely help topics tied to relevant activity. However, until digital assistants become more advanced in handling nuanced inquiries, access to informed live help will continue to be a critical component in building and maintaining valued policyholder relationships. Recognizing this need, 60% of the website assistants transfer a user to a live representative after no more than two failed answer attempts and 80% supply live support on request. Additionally, two-thirds of carriers offer direct access to live chat in public and/or authenticated areas of their sites.

Assisting Spanish-Speaking Populations Key to Growth
The growing population of native Spanish speakers in the U.S. is also driving carriers to expand their Spanish-language offerings. Direct translations ensure website visitors are provided accurate information and convey that Spanish-fluent customers are valued, leading more than half of carriers to provide public site content about insurance products in Spanish. Close to 20% further enhance digital acquisition by providing a quote flow and proposed coverage details in Spanish. Many carriers also offer agent locator tools on their websites that include agent-search criteria based on language fluency and specify language proficiency in the agents' profiles. Progressive is the first and only Scorecard carrier to now offer Spanish-language translations of its full authenticated site, including the Claims interface and the First Notice of Loss (FNOL) form. Two-thirds of carriers' sites also provide details about how to reach Spanish-speaking customer representatives, although bilingual claims support is still nascent, with just one-third listing contact information for claims representatives who are fluent in Spanish.

About the Online Insurance Scorecard
Keynova Group's semi-annual and objective Online Insurance Scorecard, offered for more than two decades, evaluates digital user capabilities, customer experience elements, and best practices to identify evolving trends and insights that drive digital strategy in the auto and property insurance industry. The evaluation encompasses the websites of 12 of the largest P&C carriers in the U.S. market: Allstate, American Family, Erie, Farmers, GEICO, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, Progressive, State Farm, The Hartford, Travelers, and USAA. A separate semi-annual Mobile Insurance Scorecard reviews the mobile app and mobile web experience. For more information, please visit https://www.keynovagroup.com/scorecards/#insurance.

About Keynova Group
Keynova Group is the nation's foremost competitive intelligence firm providing trusted benchmarking insights and analysis of consumer and small business digital financial services, including banking, credit card, home lending and insurance. Since 1999, Keynova Group's Scorecards have served as the go-to source for leading financial services firms to obtain reliable competitive intelligence and actionable insights. The firm's proven methodology and highly detailed results help its clients maximize the value of their digital channels to deliver a premier experience to customers and prospects.

SOURCE Keynova Group