travel insurance: how people search for insurance

Connecting BrandsUnderstanding search opportunities in the online travel insurance space

An iCrossing white paper by Gregory Lyons

How people searchfor travel insurance

photo by the_tahoe_guy @ Flickr

© COPYRIGHT 2010 ICROSSING LTD, HEARST GROUP 2

ConneCting Brands. UnderstAnding seArch opportUnities in the online trAvel insUrAnce spAce

AN iCrossing WHITE PAPER BY gregorY LYons

Contents

INTRODUCTION

METHODOLOGY

SUMMARY

TRENDS IN THE TRAVEL INSURANCE MARKET

THE WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS COUNTRIES

TRAVEL INSURANCE: DON’T FORGET THE BACKPACKERS

ONLINE MARKET LEADERS: WHO’S THE TRAVEL INSURANCE KING?

TOP BRANDS: HOW VISIBLE ARE TRAVEL INSURANCE BRANDS?

LINK EQUITY: WHO GETS THE MOST VOTES?

DEMOGRAPHICS: ITS ALL ABOUT WOMEN

LINGUISTICS: PEOPLE WANT IT CHEAP

MOBILE: THE NEW FRONTIER

SEASONALITY: WHEN SHOULD I LAUNCH THAT CAMPAIGN?

ABOUT ICROSSING

APPENDIX: COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

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http://www.icrossing.co.uk


connecting BrAnds. UnderstAnding seArch opportUnities in the online trAvel insUrAnce spAce

There have been some major world events this year that have impacted our ability to travel, from of the eruption of the Icelandic volcano to the political unrest in Thailand.

The Research & Insight team at iCrossing thought it would be interesting to investigate whether these events had an impact on the Travel Insurance category and take a look at the wider category as a whole.These kinds of events have meant that travellers’ interest in their travel insurance policy has increased as uncertainty around their trips has grown. Many passengers have been left stranded abroad forced to make their own way home at their own expense.

This report covers the travel insurance sector and aims to identify the main categories within that space, who the top competitors are, the demographics of travel insurance, search linguistics, mobile search and any seasonal and event driven trends.

Summer has traditionally been the peak season for travel insurance so it seemed the perfect time to take a look at the state of the travel insurance market.

introduction




photo by the_tahoe_guy @ Flickr



AN iCrossing WHITE PAPER BY gregorY LYons © COPYRIGHT 2010 ICROSSING LTD, HEARST GROUP 4



Keyword, demographic and competitor data was ollected using a combination of external and proprietary tools. iCrossing analysts then analysed the data to identify key categories and insights. Seasonality and key events were analysed by the Research team to identify patterns within the travel insurance market.

Semantic and syntactical analysis was conducted on the keyword data set to create a linguistic profile of the travel insurance market, providing an understanding of the language people use when they search.

Search volumes were analysed to identify the key categories within the travel insurance sector as well

as analysing volumes around specific keywords and keyword groups to identify popular linguistics and linguistic structures. Competitors were ranked on their performance in natural search, based on how they ranked over the entire keyword set and individual categories, factoring in weightings based on the importance of each keyword and how the competitor ranked in the search engines.

The data was analysed for the month of May 2010 and seasonal data was taken for the months January – December 2009. Natural search rankings were taken in June 2010 and may have changed by the time this report is published.

Methodology




Women are 12% more LikeLy to

searCh for traveL insuranCe

than men




photo by bartlec @ Flickr

p Searches for travel insurance have dropped

in recent years, probably due to the global

economic downturn. However natural

disasters and political unrest have fuelled

localised and temporary uplifts in the

numbers of people searching for information

about travel insurance

p People in the UK are most often searching for

travel insurance in relation to European

destinations, with the most popular financial/

buying related qualifier being ‘cheap’

p The UK market is heavily dominated by

generic travel insurance search terms, as

consumers are unsure or unaware of which

specific policies to go for. This opens up

educational opportunities

p There are several specific travel insurance

niches (‘student’, ‘business’, ‘ski’) where

competition is less fierce, allowing smaller

players to enter the market

p High street names dominate when people

are searching for branded travel insurance,

however it is the web-only companies that

dominate in the generic travel insurance

space where ranking for ‘head’ terms such as

‘travel insurance’ or ‘holiday insurance’ is key

p Women are 12% more likely to search for

travel insurance than men

p 99.9% of search is happening on desktop

computers as opposd to the mobile web

(0.1%)

summary




p The UK’s outbound market fell at the fastest rate on record last year as businesses slashed budgets and leisure travellers opted for ‘staycations’(1).

p The Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed that the number of UK visits abroad fell 15% in 2009 compared to 2008 – the largest slump since records began in the 1970s.

p The corporate market has been particularly hard hit, falling almost a quarter.

p The “unpackaging” DIY holiday trend, led by the Brits, is apparently how the world will shop for holidays in future. Responding to this demand, a rash of new travel comparison websites have appeared to help build “dynamic packages”, and offer a welcome degree of consumer protection.

p Consumers are trading-up despite the recession as the humble UK B&B goes boutique and pub restaurants have chic room add-ons.

p The UK’s inbound market also suffered, albeit to a lesser degree, with international visitor numbers down 6.3% to 29.9m. Business trips to the UK fell by 20%, however revenue from visits by overseas residents rose to £16.6bn from £16.3bn in the previous year.

p According to the ONS, those travelling overseas are going for longer, with the average stay rising to 10.5 nights in 2009, from 9.9 nights two years earlier.

p Although the UK economy is slowly recovering from the recession in 2010, the travel industry maintains a cautious outlook, particularly given the disruption earlier this year from the volcanic ash cloud and strikes by British Airways cabin crew.

p According to a recent report by Tourism Intelligence (tourism-intelligence.com), price-savvy Brits are leading the world in seeking the most cost-effective holidays.

p One of the dominant trends in the UK travel insurance market over the last five years has been the shift towards more annual policy sales as opposed to single trip policies.

(*) A staycation (also spelled stay-cation, stacation, or staykation) is a neologism for a period of time in which an individual or family stays at home and relaxes at home or takes day trips from their home to area attractions.

the uk’s outbound

market feLL at the

fastest rate on reCord

Last year as businesses

sLashed budGets

and Leisure traveLLers

opted for a ‘stayCation’




photo by chantrybee @ Flickr

snapshot of the UK travel industry

Trends in the travel insurance market


photo by nattu @ Flickr




The number of people searching for travel insurance has fallen in recent years. The recession and corresponding tightening of belts has meant that people are less likely to buy travel insurance than they were 2 years ago.

But despite the recession, a recent poll showed eight out of 10 of those made redundant were planning to travel – and do it in style – hotels not hostels and short-hop planes not long-haul buses.

trends in the travel insurance




8 out of 10 peopLe made

redundant stiLL pLan

on takinG a hoLiday

– and to do it in styLe

Year on year trends – searches for ‘travel insurance’

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

2008

2009

2010


2008

2009

2010


If we look at the chart below we can see how search interest for travel insurance fell in 2009/2010 compared to 2008 and even though we are now technically out of the recession, search volumes for travel insurance have not returned to 2008 levels.

As people try to cut travel costs, travel insurance is often the first thing to go as people often cannot see the real value of taking out holiday insurance.




global events: iceland volcano

Jan

3 20

10

Jan

10 2

010

Jan

17 2

010

Jan

24 2

010

Jan

31 2

010

Feb 7

2010

Feb 14

2010

Feb 2

1 2010

Feb 2

8 20

10

Mar

7 2

010

Mar

14 2

010

Mar

21 2

010

Mar

28

2010

Apr 4

2010

Apr 11

2010

Apr 1

8 20

10

Apr 2

5 20

10

May

2 2

010

May

9 2

010

May

16 2

010

May

23

2010

May

30 2

010

Jun

6 2010

Jun

13 2

010

iceland volcano

travel insurance

Jan

3 20

10

Jan

10 2

010

Jan

17 2

010

Jan

24 2

010

Jan

31 2

010

Feb 7

2010

Feb 14

2010

Feb 2

1 2010

Feb 2

8 20

10

Mar

7 2

010

Mar

14 2

010

Mar

21 2

010

Mar

28

2010

Apr 4

2010

Apr 11

2010

Apr 1

8 20

10

Apr 2

5 20

10

May

2 2

010

May

9 2

010

May

16 2

010

May

23

2010

May

30 2

010

Jun

6 2010

Jun

13 2

010

iceland volcano

travel insurance


When the Icelandic volcano erupted, searches for ‘Iceland volcano’ increased dramatically. What is interesting is that at the same time searches for ‘travel insurance’ also increased and when searches for ‘Iceland volcano’ reached their peak and started to decrease, so did searches for ‘travel insurance’.

It is likely that due to all the travel chaos caused by the volcano people were searching on travel insurance to see if they would be covered and what protection was afforded to them.

Global events often have an effect on what people are searching for; therefore we thought it would be interesting to take a look at a couple such events to see how they affected travel insurance search.

When the voLCano erupted,

searCh for traveL insuranCe

shot up




global events: Civil unrest in thailand


2010

2009

2008

May 22nd ‘Thailand unravelling’ more news stories break about the civil unrest

13th Apriltourists warned of violence in Thailand


Recent civil unrest in Thailand has increased searches for ‘travel insurance in Thailand’. Peaks around searches for ‘travel insurance’ coincided with news reports about the unrest. This is likely because people searched for

information about their policies given the situation in Thailand. Perhaps they were also more likely to book travel insurance given the delicate situation in Thailand.


2010

2009

2008

May 22nd ‘Thailand unravelling’ more news stories break about the civil unrest

13th Apriltourists warned of violence in Thailand




people in the UK want european travel insurance

LOWER HIGHER


As well as searching for generic travel insurance many people in the UK search for travel insurance for a specific geographical region. By knowing which areas people are more interested in, you can better target your product offerings, website optimisation and marketing campaigns.

Below we can see how interest in travel insurance for different holiday destinations by UK searchers varies across the world. The darker the colour, the more people in the UK who are searching for travel insurance for that region.

We can see that a lot of people are searching for European travel insurance, while, surprisingly not so many are searching for other international destinations such as South America or Asia. However, we need to consider that search figures obviously correspond with the volume of travel to that region.

LOWER HIGHER

there are more

searChes for european

& ameriCan traveL

insuranCe than for the

rest of the WorLd

The world’s most‘dangerous’ countries


photo by prakhar @ Flickr




Insurance is generally taken out to cover risk.

Given this, we though it interesting to take a look at whether search volumes are higher for countries deemed riskier than average.

We looked at several data sources on the world’s most ‘dangerous’ countries and then looked at the number of UK searchers looking for travel insurance for that country. The top five are shown overleaf.

the worlds most dangerous




Although these countries are ‘dangerous’ countries to visit and therefore you might imagine buying insurance would be a top priority, there is not a lot of interest in travel insurance for them.

South Africa tops the list as this year the World Cup was hosted there and people would have been travelling from the UK to South Africa in greater numbers than usual.

south afriCa is the most

popuLar of the danGerous

Countries, partiCuLarLy

this year as tourists

fLoCked to the

WorLd Cup

South Africa Brazil Russia PakistanSri Lanka

the worlds most dangerous

350

0

170

73

58

MO

NT

HLY

SE

AR

CH

VO

LU

ME

S

73

Don’t forget the backpackers


photo by fesoj @ Flickr




Segmenting the market is important in order to better understand and target new potential customers. With that in mind, we have broken down the travel insurance search space overleaf.

don’t forget the backpackers




GeneriC traveL

insuranCe makes up

75% of the market

don’t forget the backpackers

This tree map shows the relative popularity of each category within the travel insurance market. Generic searches for ‘travel insurance’ makes up approximately 75% of searches within the sector, with generic ‘holiday insurance’ searches in second place.

This implies that the majority of people don’t know exactly what type of insurance they are looking for,or that they don’t know what is available to them.

This presents an opportunity to educate and inform travellers. The largest niche group of travellers within the travel insurance space was ‘backpackers travel insurance’ with over 30,000 UK searches per month. If you include ‘student’ and ‘gap year travel insurance’ searches that number rises to just under 50,000 searches a month.




Who’s the travelinsurance king?


photo by kjunstorm @ Flickr




Who’s the travel insurance king?

Understanding where you are placed in your market and who your competition are is an important factor to success. By knowing your competition you can learn from them, observe what tactics they are using and ultimately, outperform them.





the top 5 keyWords represent

50% of traveL insuranCe

searCh

moneysupermarket.com(83,868)

comparethemarket.com(24,473)

insureandgo.com(23,612)

cheaptravelinsurance.com(19,587)

travelinsurance.com(19,501)

the entire travel insurance market

The below graphics show who the market leader is in each travel insurance category. The numbers associated with each website represent their relative weighting.

The heavyweight of the online travel insurance market is Money Supermarket, ranking first for important terms such as ‘travel insurance’ and ‘holiday insurance’.

The top 5 keywords in this sector represent 50% of travel insurance searches, highlighting the importance of ranking well for ‘head’ terms. The graphs on the left highlight this visually, with each ‘block’ representing a keyword and the size the importance of that keyword.

Top 5 Keywords

Rest of keywords




baCkpaCkers traveL insuranCe

is the LarGest of the speCiaList CateGories With

over 30,000 searChes a

month

Backpacker travel insurance

insureandgo(4,000)

travelinsurance.co.uk(2,671)

endsleigh.co.uk(1,180)

thebackpacker.net(1,157)

duinsure.com(1,106)

‘Backpackers travel insurance’ is the largest of the specialist categories, with over 30,000 searches a month. It is dominated by a mixture of specialist and generic insurers.

This is a space where smaller sites will find it easier to compete, with large websites such as Money Supermarket only ranking 10th. It opens up the space for smaller sites to carve out a niche.





ski traveL insuranCe is

another popuLar CateGory With

just under 30,000 uk searChes a

month

ski travel insurance

rance.essentialtravel.co.uk(3,190)

travelinsurance.co.uk(2,241)

ski-insurance.co.uk(1,928)


cheaptravelinsurance.com(777)


‘Ski travel insurance’ is another popular category with just under 30,000 UK searches a month.

Many of the heavyweights such as Money Supermarket and Compare the Market do not feature as prominently in this category and some of the sites that do feature are not as optimised as they could be. This opens up the space for strong players to enter the market.




snoWboard traveL insuranCe is not as popuLar

as ski traveL insuranCe, With

10 times feWer searChes

snowboard travel insurance

snowcard.co.uk(284)

boardsure.com(178)

travelinsurance.co.uk(162)

insureandgo.com(136)

snowinsure.com(62)


Interestingly ‘snowboard travel insurance’ is not as popular as ‘ski travel insurance’, with 10 times fewer searches.




the top 2 terms in this

CateGory make up 63%

of searCh

single trip travel insurance

moneysupermarket.com(5,142)

insurance.essentialtravel.co.uk(1,872)


columbusdirect.com(713)

morethan.com(661)

who’s the travel insurance king?

The ‘single trip travel insurance’ category is dominated by many of the big names in travel insurance: Money Supermarket, Insure & Go and More Th>n.

With just over 25,000 monthly searches it is the third largest specialist travel category. This category is highly dominated by its ‘head’ terms, with two search terms making up 63% of search in this area.




this is the first CateGory

Where a hiGh street brand has featured

in the top five.

Multi trip travel insurance

multitrip.com(3,863)

halifax.co.uk(686)

endsleigh.co.uk(623)

moneysupermarket.com(434)

direct-travel.co.uk(378)


The fourth biggest category, ‘multi trip travel insurance’ is dominated by a specialist provider, Multitrip.com. This is the first category where a high street brand has featured in the top five.




one of the smaLLer

CateGories, it presents an

opportunity for speCiaList

businesses to enter the

spaCe

Business travel insurance


columbusdirect.com(1,095)

travelinsurance.co.uk(709)

morethan.com(305)

aatravelinsurance.com(303)


The ‘business travel insurance’ category is a relatively small category with only a handful of keywords that are worth targeting. Heavyweight MoneySupermarket only ranks 26th in this category.

This presents an opportunity for specialist business travel insurance providers to enter into and rank well in this space.




speCiaList providers dominate

this spaCe

student travel insurance

statravel.co.uk(1,906)

endsleigh.co.uk(603)

cover4students.com(359)

etravelinsurance.co.uk(219)

insureandgo.com(189)


The ‘student travel insurance’ category is dominated by specialist insurance providers such as STA Travel and Endsleigh which together represent 55% of the total online student travel insurance search space.

Amongst the head terms in this category, ‘student travel insurance’ is 7.5 times more important than the next closest keyword: ‘travel insurance for students’.

How visible are travel insurance brands?


29

photo by frielp @ Flickr





Off-line messaging and brand marketing can drive online traffic. Search volumes for generic terms such as ‘travel insurance’ are approximately 10 times higher than branded travel insurance search.

how visible are travel insurance brands?




0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

25,000

30,000

35,000

40,000

45,000

Post office Tesco Direct line Saga Virgin AXA Endsleigh Sainsburys Halifax STA Travel

UK

Mo

nth

ly S

earc

h V

olu

me

s

GeneriC searCh is

approximateLy 10 times

hiGher than branded

searCh

The graph below shows UK monthly search volumes or travel insurance searches that include brand terms.It is interesting to see that high street brands are dominating, while internet only brands do not have as strong a presence.

This highlights the importance of brand affinity and how off-line messaging can translate into online success.

While sites such as the Post Office and Tesco may not be as successful as Money Supermarket and Compare the Market when it comes to non-brand travel insurance searches, with respect to branded searches Money Supermarket and Compare the Market have very little brand presence in the travel insurance space.

how visible are travel insurance brands?

Link equity: who gets the mosts votes?


photo by mikebaird @ Flickr




In the online natural search space inbound links to a site are like votes of confidence in the eyes of search engines, in a nutshell, the more high quality links a site has pointing at it the better that site will rank in search results.

link equity: who gets the most votes?




money supermarket

Comes out top With over 2.6

miLLion Links

The network map below shows a snapshot of the online travel insurance market with some of the bigger sites highlighted and the total number of backlinks to the site shown for each site.

In the map below the small blue circles represent websites and the lines between them links between sites.

You can see that the main players have hundreds of thousands if not millions of sites pointing at them.

In the map below we can see that Money Supermarket comes out top with over 2.6 million links, which correlates to the rankings and competitive landscape information we saw before.

We can use this information to gauge competitiveness, looking at the networks sites are part of and where your customers are, where conversations are likely happening and which websites are potentially worth targeting as part of an outreach campaign.

link equity: who gets the most votes?

Demographics:its all about women


35

photo by kevindooley @ Flickr





Understanding the demographic makeup of your audience is important in order to target content and online messaging.

Each travel insurance category will have its own demographic with some forms of insurance more popular with young audiences and some with an older audience.

demographics: its all about women




your Customers

are 12% more LikeLy to be

Women

Whole travel insurance market

0%

05%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

18-24 25-34 35-49 50-64 65+

56% 44%

Here we take a look at the demographics for the whole of the online travel insurance market. You can see from the graphic below that the largest demographic for online travel insurance are women aged 35-49, with older generations (50-64) more likely to search for travel insurance than younger generations (25-34).

This data suggests that in families it is often the mother that takes care of buying holidays and travel insurance, explaining the larger percentage of female searchers and the older demographic.





Backpacker travel insurance

0%

05%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

18-24 25-34 35-49 50-64 65+

61% 39%

‘Backpacker travel insurance’ is again dominated by female searchers (are young male travellers too cavalier to worry about travel insurance?) Unsurprisingly the demographic for these searchers is younger than for generic ‘travel insurance’, with the majority aged between 18-34.


baCkpaCkertraveL

insuranCe is aGain

dominated by femaLe

searChers




as With previous

CateGories it is the Women

that Lead the Way in ski traveL

insuranCe.

ski travel insurance

0%

05%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

18-24 25-34 35-49 50-64 65+

57% 43%

As with previous categories it is the women that lead the way in’ ski travel insurance’ searches (by a factor of 14%).

The demographic for this sector is older than for ‘backpacker insurance’ but still younger than for generic ‘travel insurance’, with the majority of searchers aged between 18-49.





business traveL

insuranCe has an oLder demoGraphiC


0%

05%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

18-24 25-34 35-49 50-64 65+

59% 41%

‘Business travel insurance’ has an older demographic than the usual travel insurance demographic, with the highest number of 50 to 64-years-olds from any category.


Linguistics: people want it cheap


photo by bonnieann1815 @ Flickr




Understanding the language people use when they search is important when looking to rank well.

By matching up the language on your site with the language people use when they search, you are more likely to rank for those queries.

linguistics: people want it cheap




peopLe are interested

in findinG ‘Cheap’ traveL

insuranCe

0

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

cheap cheapest quote quotes buy cheaper low cost discount free

UK

Mo

nth

ly S

earc

h V

olu

me

s

The next two graphs look at some of the linguistics used by searchers in the UK when looking for travel insurance.

You can see in the graph below that people are interested in finding ‘cheap’ travel insurance, while the phrase ‘low cost’ is not as popular. In the graph below the numbers down the left hand side represent the number of UK monthly searches.





over 65 traveL

insuranCe is the most

popuLar

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

16,000

18,000

Over 65 Over 70 Over 75 Over 80 Over 65s Over 70s Over 60

UK

Mo

nth

ly S

earc

h V

olu

me

s

Below we can see that ‘Over 65 travel insurance’ is the most popular of the age-related searches and that singular searches (‘Over 65’, ‘Over 70’ ,etc) are more common than their plural equivalents (‘Over 65s’, ‘Over 70s’).





LookinG at the Word CLoud We

Can see that insuranCe types are

popuLar quaLifiers

cheaptrip

annualsingleski

comparisonhealth

reviews

quote

backpackers

backpackerworldwide

uk

student

gapcheaper

best

quotes winter

europeanfamily sports

directcheapest

multi

budget year

cruisebusiness

compareonline

The word cloud below shows a visual representation of the types of words people use when searching for travel insurance. The larger the word the more often it is used. For the purpose of this visualisation the words ‘travel’, ‘holiday’ and ‘insurance’ were removed.

Looking at the word cloud we can see that insurance types are popular qualifiers (‘annual’, ‘single’, ‘ski’ etc) as well as financial qualifiers (‘cheap’, ‘cheapest’), people are also looking to find the best deal, searching using phrases such as ‘comparison’ and ‘reviews’.


Mobile: the new frontier


photo by jorge quinteros @ Flickr




Mobile usage and mobile search is a rapidly growing market, there are now over 15 million people in the UK using the mobile web1.

Mobile is big but how relevant is it in the insurance market? 1 Econsultancy Mobile Statistics Compendium April 2010





15+ miLLion uk mobiLe

internet in 2009

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

travelinsurance

cheap travel

insurance

holidayinsurance

cheapholiday

insurance

directtravel

insurance

comparetravel

insurance

travelinsurance

uk

cheapesttravel

insurance

UK

Mo

nth

ly S

earc

h V

olu

me

s

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Mob

ile S

earch

Deskto

p Sea

rch 99.9%

0.1%

Desktop search

Mobile search

Travel insurance searches are still predominantly conducted on the desktop with only 0.1% of searches done using a mobile phone.

The graph below shows mobile search phrases along with associated monthly search volumes for the UK.


When should I launch that campaign?


photo by jurvetson @ Flickr




Having an understanding of seasonal trends can help you plan activity.

Knowing what time of year people start thinking about travel insurance will let you plan marketing campaigns, content plans and help direct off-line activity.

When should i launch that campaign?




pLan ahead to aChieve

maximum suCCess

Keywords Jan Feb Mar Apr Mar Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Travel insurance

Ski insurance


Each sub-category of travel insurance has its own seasonal pattern and we looked at a couple of examples below. The heatmap shows the seasonality for three different areas of travel insurance, the darker the colour the more searches there are in that month.

You can see that for generic travel insurance the most popular months for searches are in the summer months. What is interesting is that people are searching and buying travel insurance around the same time as their holidays and are not planning ahead with their insurance purchase.

The key time of the year for ‘ski insurance’, unsurprisingly are the winter months of December to March, with the number of searches building up in November. Interest in ‘business travel insurance’ remains fairly constant throughout the year, including the summer months; which is interesting as you might expect searches in this area to drop in the summer months.

When should i launch that campaign?

AboutiCrossing





About icrossing

iCrossing UK is a digital marketing agency that specialises in search and social media.

We design and build search and social media strategies for some of the world’s biggest brands, including The Coca-Cola Company, Toyota, Virgin, Bank of America, and TK MAXX. iCrossing UK is part of iCrossing, one of the world’s largest, digital marketing agencies, which employs 600 staff in 12 offices around the globe, including 100 staff based at UK offices in London and Brighton. iCrossing has won numerous accolades, including the number one-ranked agency for both paid and natural search in Forrester Research’s 2009 Wave report of US search marketing agencies, OMMA’s Search Agency of the Year, Best Use of Search at the Revolution Awards and a finalist for Revolution’s Agency of the Year award. We are also the only agency with two Forrester social-media case studies to its name. iCrossing is a unit of Hearst Corporation, one of the world’s largest diversified media companies.

For more information please visit www.icrossing.co.uk or contact us at [email protected]

London2nd floor 22 Chapter Street London SW1P 4NP

Tel: +44(0)20 7821 2300 Fax: +44 (0)20 7828 2866

BrightonMoore House13 Black Lion Street Brighton United Kingdom BN1 1ND

Tel: +44 (0)1273 828100 Fax: +44 (0)1273 828101

Appendix:competitive analysis


photo by footloosiety @ Flickr




The list overleaf details the top websites in the Travel Insurance category, listed in order of Natural Search presence.

The weight is a score calculated using iCrossing’s proprietary Search Visibility Index tool which takes into consideration site ranking, positional click through rates and search volumes to generate an overall picture of how a site is currently performing.

Appendix: competitive analysis




overall travel insurance

01. moneysupermarket.com 83,86902. comparethemarket.com 24,47403. insureandgo.com 23,61304. cheaptravelinsurance.com 19,58705. travelinsurance.co.uk 19,501

06. insurance.essentialtravel.co.uk 16,35907. direct-travel.co.uk 16,07608. gotravelinsurance.co.uk 15,37709. confused.com 10,19610. columbusdirect.com 8,555


money supermarket is ranked the

hiGhest With 83,869




Backpacker, student and gap year travel insurance

01. insureandgo.com 4,32702. travelinsurance.co.uk 3,23603. endsleigh.co.uk 3,02604. statravel.co.uk 2,12505. duinsure.com 1,174

06. thebackpacker.net 1,15707. columbusdirect.com 84808. insurance.essentialtravel.co.uk 82609. 247travelinsurance.co.uk 56710. gapyear.com 498


insure and Go is ranked

the hiGhest With 4,327




ski and snowboard insurance

01. insurance.essentialtravel.co.uk 3,23202. travelinsurance.co.uk 2,40303. ski-insurance.co.uk 1,98104. insureandgo.com 1,40805. cheaptravelinsurance.com 825

06. travel-insurance.net 77407. snowcard.co.uk 63808. columbusdirect.com 63409. skicover.co.uk 52910. comparethemarket.com 514


insuranCe essentiaL traveL is

ranked the hiGhest With

3,232

travel insurance: how people search for insurance

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