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A little over three years ago, Google launched a project that caught the attention of insurance intermediaries. In the United States and the United Kingdom, it introduced a system where, after entering a set of details, users received comparative results for car insurance, travel insurance, mortgages and credit cards.
In the insurance sector, there was concern that the search giant could challenge the role of professional intermediaries and monopolise insurance mediation.
These are examples of the news stories published at the time:
The Google giant is now selling insurance
The operation seemed as simple as this:
Was Google Compare over?
The truth is that, according to this article, Google decided to abandon the project on 23 February 2016.
Why did Google close its comparison service?
Everything suggests that Google failed to persuade major insurers to join the project. Those companies did not consider it feasible, or advisable, to replace the work carried out by their professional mediation channels.
Was the closure final?
It was not clear whether the announcement meant a definitive goodbye to the project, but at that time Google had set it aside completely.
Google thanked those who had taken part in the project, acknowledged that the decision may have disappointed many people and stated that it would focus on Google Adwords. It also explained that a future attempt could not be ruled out if innovation later made it possible to deliver efficient results to users and an optimum ROI for project partners.
What was the reaction on social media?
On Twitter, many users described the project as a failure. These were some of the comments shared at the time.
This was not the first project that Google tried and later abandoned, and it will not be the last.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]