WALMART AT IT AGAIN – THIS TIME GETTING INTO AUTO INSURANCE
Clearly Walmart doesn’t take declining sales lying down. They are looking for any kind of edge they can get over their competitors and are starting to think out of the box with all these new businesses. For the 3rd time in less than 60 days Walmart has announced it is entering a new business. This time it is the auto insurance business, partnering with a company called autoinsurance.com. The idea is effectively the same as Lending Tree for mortgages, or Expedia for travel but with fewer options to choose from. The web site will allow people to see prices from 6 different auto insurance companies. Walmart gets a monthly fee from the deal, for promoting the web site in their stores and on their web site. Autoinsurance.com will be paid a commission when a customer buys auto insurance through the web site. Not all the large auto insurance companies are on board with this latest venture but the web site does feature Progressive, Travelers, and Esurance. Missing are some of the largest insurance companies in the industry such as Geico and State Farm, to name a few. Walmart hopes to add more insurance companies to the site in the future and it will be interesting to see if they are successful in doing so. Will other companies want to follow suit and get on the Walmart bandwagon, or will they see that in a negative light and not join? For now the web site will only be offered in 8 states, which Walmart hopes to expand to the rest of the country (and beyond?) if it is successful. I was unaware that they have already been down the insurance path before, partnering with the same company that ownsautoinsurance.com (Tranzutary Insurance Solutions) to do a life insurance pilot that is offered by MetLife. What will they try to get into next? I don’t know but I promise it will be here when it is announced. As always thanks for reading and have a great day.
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