Online Sales Of Insurance Seen Growing

In 1998, an estimated $8 billion in consumer sales occurred online, and over $1 billion of that is estimated to have been for online sales of insurance products, according to figures presented at a recent regulatory affairs conference here. The insurance products sold this way were primarily term life, auto and homeowners insurance, said L. David Blair, vice president-industry and regulatory affairs at Intuit Insurance Services in Alexandria, Va. In a panel at a meeting of the National Association for Variable Annuities, Mr. Blair predicted that online insurance sales will only go higher in the years to come and by the year 2003 should reach nearly $4 billion.