Some of the Yahoo posters seem to think that the fact that AIG set up AIGDirect.com means the end of HealthAxis.com.
There is a piece about the site in today's Wall Street Journal. I don't see anything in the article that would lead me to abandon my position in HealthAxis. Perhaps I am missing something in my reading. Here is the story:
October 19, 1999
AIG Internet Site Offers
Price Quotes, Some Sales
By DEBORAH LOHSE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NEW YORK -- American International Group Inc., in a move likely to pressure other insurers to speed up their Internet efforts, started an online site for individuals and small businesses to get price quotations and, in some cases, arrange to buy AIG insurance products.
AIG, a big insurer that sells a broad spectrum of insurance products, started aigdirect.com (www.aigdirect.com) to give online price quotes to those seeking insurance coverage for their car, home and life, as well as for renters. Also available are quotes for accidental death and dismemberment and home-warranty insurance products. AIG hopes to let customers buy some products online soon, but for now customers generally must contact an AIG sales representative and mail in signed paperwork to purchase certain quoted coverage.
Unlike Progressive Corp., a competitor to AIG in selling auto insurance to customers without a middleman, AIG won't offer price quotes from any competitors on its site.
AIG isn't the first insurer to offer an Internet site, with several dozen insurers, by some estimates, offering some level of price quotes on the Internet. Many of those companies treat their sites as leads for agents, and most don't have a way for customers to actually buy the coverage online.
Analysts said the move made sense for AIG, which is considered a shrewd, low-cost strategist. "It's important to gain a toehold in cyberspace, because increasingly that is going to become a preferred distribution point for customers," said Alice Schroeder, an analyst with PaineWebber Inc.
Others said the move sends a strong message to other insurers that the Internet is likely to progress quickly out of its current infancy. "You gotta figure that others that have not done this yet have to be concerned," said Michael Smith, an analyst at Bear, Stearns & Co.
AIG, which didn't disclose the value of its investment in its new Internet operation, said the potential of the Internet is still a bit of a mystery. "I don't think anybody knows where technology will take any industry" said AIG Chairman Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg. "But not to be present in it, to learn more about it and participate in it, that's not in our corporate culture," he said.
He added that AIG will tailor its Internet site as it gathers more information from customers. "We'll learn more about behavioral patterns, what segment of the population wants to buy on the Internet," he said.
Mr. Greenberg also said certain products, such as simple car and home insurance and ultrasimple commercial-insurance policies, lend themselves more readily to being sold over the Internet than such products as complicated commercial coverage. "The likelihood of having complex product sold that way is a long way off," said Mr. Greenberg. |
