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• January 2010
• Verizon.com

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A selection of sites that have rated well in our evaluations, and that are amongst the leaders in their industries.

MetLife.com

MetLife is a leading provider of insurance and other financial services to millions of individual and institutional customers throughout the United States.

MetLife.com was the most frequented insurance site visited as a result of the search in 2009, with 5.8 percent of total search clicks (paid and organic) landing on the site (according to Comscore, out of 16.6 million 'life insurance' searches in 2009). MetLife has consistently maintained a strong web presence as a critical component of product education.The importance of websites is growing for all insurers and Metlife is no exception with more and more customers and prospects going online to conduct research.

The effectiveness and quality of the content is crucial as financial products have become increasingly complex. As with many websites in the financial services industry, there has been an exponential growth of the amount of online material. This growth has the potential to adversely impact usability - customers and prospects alike are experiencing more difficulties locating critical information and completing simple tasks.

MetLife upgraded its website last year which resulted in a much-improved user experience as the site transitioned to one that engages more with prospects looking to research and purchase life insurance. When customers come to a website, they want to complete a task - find product information, understand what type and how insurance is needed, and choose and locate the nearest agent. Correct identification of crucial tasks results in a far more effective and customer-focused site, and MetLife has clearly increased the prominence of what it feels are the most important paths for its customers.

Some of the key functionality that makes Metlife.com an excellent industry website are:

• Streamlined navigation. The navigation menu structure has been streamlined to make key tasks much more obvious. This has provided a less cluttered home page and a page design that allows a more intuitive experience. The site is now focused on the individual customer, with separate less obvious routes for employers and brokers. This change of emphasis has allowed primary navigation to be focused on major individual product lines. The product drill-downs, use of tabbed menus, and expandable detail modules creates an impression of fewer clicks and keeps site visitors much more on-task. All of these improvements result in a site with good content but without unneccessairly deep site navigation. The logically structured content has also eliminated many of the "related links" that caused prospects to jump across site sections. Visitors are now less likely to be distracted and stray off task.
• Better tools. The site has been enhanced with a set of interactive tools to directly address customers questions about "What type of coverage should I take", "How much insurance coverage do I need" and "What will it cost". These tools are attractive and easy to use and allow customers to go deeper into the purchasing process. The company been able to repurpose the tools by linking directly to them from paid-for online advertising. Recently the quote engine has enjoyed even greater visibility on the home page, presumably in response to its popularity.
• Easier access to agents. While consumers hesitate to contact insurance agents, the majority still prefer to interact with them prior to purchasing or amending financial services products. The process of contacting agents should be under the control of customers/prospects and access on Metlife.com is very clear and obvious. A variety of contact options are available on most pages without being intrusive. Customers can opt for a call-back or research local agents and agencies.
• Easier access to account management. Account self-service is important to customers and company alike and the logon and registration is accessible from more pages.

Overall the Life Insurance section of the website performs very well and is part of the new generation of customer-centric insurance websites.