INSURANCE COMPANIES ON THE INTERNET

Abstract

The e-trade gains more and more importance in the future insurance sector. In 1999, Call-Centers appeared and in the same time the reduction of the sub-office system started. The phone client service as well as the role of the Internet in the information and the trade system have gained an increasing importance. Real breakthrough cannot be expected in the near future in this area. The causes of this can be found in the low number of the Internet users and the demographic features of them. If we say that 10\% of the inhabitants are users that would mean one million people. According to the TGI 2000, 1395000 people have Internet access, but most of them are between the age of 18 and 25 who do not belong to the targets of the insurance companies. Naturally some encouraging signs can be found in both the Hungarian and the foreign markets [17]. One percent of the whole trade of the USA is through the Internet, while in our country we can talk about the amount spent on the improvement of the Internet. The increase of the Internet improvement can be the base of the active Internet trade. In 2000 the commercial costs reached 1.2 billion forints [18]. The costs in western Europe are estimated to reach 1.5 billion dollars and other increases are forecasted. The importance of Internet is growing year after year in other branches as well: for example pharmaceutical or automobile industry [20]. The online commercials are made by companies that are preparing for the start of our Internet trade, and they include some Hungarian insurance companies.