June Online Auto Insurance News Wrap-Up

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif., July 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- More customers buying car insurance policies online, policyholders reporting record-high satisfaction levels with auto insurers, Esurance implementing new civil-union and domestic-partnership discounts, auto insurers spending more money on advertising, and car-theft rates falling. The following summary sheets recaps some of this past month's biggest auto insurance news developments covered by News.OnlineAutoInsurance.com:

• A comScore survey of 4,000 Internet users showed that online car insurance policy sales jumped 6 percent between 2010 and 2011. Altogether, there were approximately 3.1 million policies sold online last year, which is 41 percent larger than the amount sold in 2007.
• Results of a J.D. Power and Associates survey indicate that insurers are doing a good a job as ever at keeping their customers happy. Policyholders gave their insurers an average score of 804 on a 1,000-point scale when asked how satisfied they were with their providers. That's a 14-point jump from the last survey and the highest reported satisfaction level J.D. Power has seen.
• Esurance announced it would be giving committed same-sex partners in civil unions or domestic partnerships in 21 states the same discount that's extended to legally married couples. Married policyholders see average savings of about 10 percent compared with single policyholders.
• America's top 16 insurers spent a total of about $5.3 billion on advertising last year, according to a new report from business-intelligence firm SNL Financial. SNL said that represents an increase of nearly 18 percent from the year before.
• The National Insurance Crime Bureau released its preliminary data on vehicle thefts, which indicate that vehicle thefts have been falling overall but that California remains the car-theft mecca of the country. Seven of the 10 "hot spots" for vehicle thefts were in California.
• The Consumer Federation of America released two reports this month on consumers potentially getting shortchanged by computer-based claim-payment systems and on middle-income drivers getting charged high prices for coverage.
• Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal signed two coverage-related measures into law in June. One allows drivers to use digital copies of their insurance cards when proving to state officials that they have a policy in place. The other allows police to impound cars that they believe to be uninsured.

Head to http://news.onlineautoinsurance.com/ to get the full story on these and many other new developments in the car insurance industry.

SOURCE Online Auto, LLC