Could someone tell me what is needed to create a car insurance comparison website?

[JDias]

Could someone tell me what is needed to create a car insurance comparison website?
Which programs would i need to use and to create what part?
I've got some experience with web designing,what i need to know is if the website could be created using dreamweaver...and some more details on how to get data from the insurance companies and which program should i use for that?
I really need a very good explanation from scratch.

THANKS FOR YOUR TIME

 

[akirk]

a good explanation from scratch is simple...

you make sure you have lots of money
you turn up at a web development company
you spend your money

no-one is going to give you that kind of detail, let alone on a business site (try a web coding forum!) you will need arrangements with the insurance companies and then use their apis to spubmit to them and get a response...

easy

Alasdair

 

[TheGuru2010]

In response to this, you will need massive amounts of funds to get this off the ground.

Its not a simple case of design a site & then off we go, all of your insurers will need to submit the rates in a perticular format etc.

How will you drive customers to the site?

 

[mit74]

judging by the fact you're asking questions about how to make a website it's very unlikely you have the skills to do this. This is extremely challenging for even experienced developers. Development time for one person is likely to be well over 6 months and will need extensive knowledge of ajax/xml techniques. Dreamweaver could not so this reallly but you could get a head start by using CMS software like Joomla but that would require knowledge of PHP.

 

[crazyrccars]

Hey,

I agree with what's been said above. This is going to take a lot of money to get off the ground. Not so much for the website but for the amount of marketing you will need to spend on it to get the amount of exposure and traffic you are after.

But I have to be blunt, this is an extremely competitive market place and trying to compete with the bigboys in this sector is virtually impossible unless you have an investor who has very very deep pockets and who wants to take a big gamble on your idea.

I would stick to something more niche if I were you

Cheers

Grant

 

[David Mac]

As has been said above, it's not a diy job, unless you really know what you're doing. If you really want to do it, your best bet is to use a "white label" from one of the big companies. e.g. http://www.beatthatquote.com/about/contact_us.html

 

[Astaroth]

Just to add to the above.......

First of all, I would say not to do it, look at the aggregator margins and they are razon thin and thats the ones that are established and not having to pay to get every single visitor to the site (as they are known brands).

Secondly, you dont just get a programme for getting the details from the insurers. You have two options, you either hire developers and they will create the application for you. Alternatively you sign up with an existing aggregator that offers a white labeling service. Do some googling and you will find who offer it.

Thirdly you then have to deal with the FSA and the permissions you require for dealing with insurance.

Finally, you will need a marketing budget of at least £X0,000,000 a year to make any form of revenue

 

[JDias]

Hi there,thank you all for your replies.
I know that this is not going to be a walk in the park,but i also know that if i do this the profits will be there.
I'm not trying to compete with the big boys.
I'm not planning to host the website in England,it will be in a Country where there is no comparison websites at all(car insurance,home insurance...).
If you have any more advices or anything to say,please do.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Astaroth]

Going into a new country is potentially much harder.

In the UK the big insurers all have webservices set up and so the aggregators hook up to them. For smaller players or brokers, most of the off the shelf software have a standard aggregator feed setup already and for those that done the aggregators will tell them the standards they need to follow.

In the old days here, before aggregators became successful, it was more difficult because the insurers and brokers websites didnt have webservices and they didnt see the viability of the idea and therefore wouldnt invest and so the aggregators were having to screenscrape the information which is much harder for a number of reasons (technical and business)

We have been working with an organisation to launch an aggregator into a new market and we are in year 3 of planning and still really not much closer to actually start coding. Dont under estimate the size of the project.

 

[bdw]

I agree. If there are no comparison sites in your country it is almost certainly because there is no infrastructure to support them. The Go Compares and Confused.coms of this world would be in there like a shot if it were at all possible.

 

[kulture]

To do this you have to be a registered broker. You need to have a written agreement with all of the insurance companies whose insurance you are offering. The insurance companies will have special "broker" products which calculate rates depending on driver criteria and location in a fairly standard industry wide way. The insurance companies will have to supply you with their algorithm, factors used, and multipliers. The insurance companies will have to keep you up to date with all this information.

Your system will have to be capable of capturing the key details of the drivers and cars and locations required by ALL the insurance companies. Then QUICKLY calculating the premiums using each of the insurance companies algorithms to provide the answers in a reasonable timeframe (less than 15 seconds).

So you need the complete co-operation of all the insurance companies, a industry wide infrastructre that has been built up over years to support brokers, and a very powerful server. The chances are that if it is not done in your target country, you have NO CHANCE.

 

[Astaroth]

You dont have to be registered as a broker at all. You are an introducer not a broker, though some areas of these sites are a 1-2-1 introducer to a broker who present their panel results in a pseudo aggregator way

A broker sells insurance, an aggregator doesnt, it lists prices and passes you to another entity to complete the sale

 

[kulture]

Whatever you call it, you need written agreements with the insurer, and their weightings and algorithms. Commercially confidential data.

 

[Astaroth]

Whatever you call it, you need written agreements with the insurer, and their weightings and algorithms. Commercially confidential data.

No, most work on webservices and so the aggregators send the insurer the rating factors and they return with a premium. Whilst by making small adjustments you could in theory work out the rating factors it doesnt automatically mean they have to expose their weightings. Even if you did try to calculate their ratings you would have difficulties due to randomisation that occurs to test elasticity of customers.

Confused.com were even famous in the early days for listing Direct Line and other RBS Insurance brands without their permission. They used screen scraping to get the figures, were sued several times but whilst it lasted they had a big feather in the cap by being the only one that listed them. Of cause they didn't receive any monies for any DL policies they sold but as always risk -v- reward.

 

[kulture]

Interesting to see how the market has changed since I last worked designing and developing insurance systems.

 

[JDias]

Thank you ALL for your replies,

i thought it was going to be hard but i had no idea how hard.
I was extremely excited with this idea but now i'm just confused,i thought i saw a big gap in the market and i was planning to take it but now i just don't know what to do anymore.

Once again,thank you all,
if you have anything else to add,please do

 

[JDias]

What could i do with the "white label" idea??

 

[Astaroth]

The norm for a white label is that you take an existing companies offer and simply apply your branding to it. You're then responsible for the marketing and them for the fulfilment.

Typically this would only work for a market the provider is already in but certainly some playes would consider entering into new markets as long as either it fits with their roadmap or if the partner is going to bring something big to the table.


The project is certainly doable but it will take both time and money to do it; it certainly isnt a case of a few hours with dreamweaver and then jobs done.

By the sounds of it you don't have a large amount of insurance experience and therefore if you did want to go ahead with it you would be sensible to hire someone (or partner with them) who does have indepth and broad knowledge of insurance in your target market - ideally encompasing regulation, commercials and the internet technologies

 

[freshpurple]

Sounds like the Internet age equivalent of:

What's the fastest way to make a million dollars? :|











Take a billion dollars and start an airline

Though I guess that is still true

 

[JDias]

Thanks Dan.