It sounds like online sales of auto insurance is starting to come of age, according to this ComputerWorld article:
Consumers submitted more than 70 million auto insurance online rate quotes from 2004 to 2006, but they didn’t convert those quotes to actual purchases until last year, according to comScore. The number of auto insurance quotes submitted online last year rose 15% from 2005, but the number of policies purchased online increased 58%, comScore said.[.]
Growth in the online auto insurance market continued in the first two months of this year, according to comScore. During January and February, the number of auto insurance quotes submitted online was up 29% and the number of policies purchased online increased 45%, compared to the same period in 2006, according to the study.
In addition, 65% of the 2,043 U.S. online consumers surveyed during the first week in March said they would consider purchasing their next auto insurance policy online, comScore said. A majority of the consumers (69%) who said they would not purchase policies online indicated they would rather speak with an insurance professional personally, while 53% said they didn’t want to submit personal information on a Web site, comScore said.