These days, you can get insured for almost anything and the world wide web has in part produced a highly transparent and competitive market place for insurance providers. The law requires that customers purchase certain types of insurance such as car insurance or medical insurance in certain jurisdictions. Other insurance although optional in law is viewed by most customers as a ‘must have’ such as travel insurance or insurance for a person’s business interests or property belonging to their business. There is then another type of product focused mainly on the consumer market that is highly specialised such as pet policies, wedding insurance or certain types of extreme sports insurance. Either in the high street or on the internet, businesses tender different excesses and policy prices according to many different variables. There is also a secondary market for customers to buy the services of insurance brokers who trawl the market for products at the request of their consumer or corporate clients. Underwriters are another group of agents operating in the insurance industry.

This is where the risks of any given insurance venture are calculated and the underwriter decides what the insurer should charge for their services or whether or not insurance should be offered at all. To take the example of car insurance, the underwriter would assess in detail the driving history of the customer. In medical insurance, another example might be where the patients health is taken into account. The introduction of the internet greatly helps the insurance sector maintain its competitiveness and transparency but many customers are still finding themselves uninsured when it really matters. Winter sports insurance is an excellent example of this. It is reported that more than half of holidaymakers to winter skiing destinations have no insurance and although the other half do, less than a quarter of them are actually insured for skiing and snowboarding which are classed by most insurers as ‘extreme sports’ and excluded from their plans. Many European travelers also think that their E111 is adequate to get them treatment but this is not true in most resorts. Another interesting example of The adaptation of the insurance sector is the relentless price war between opposing auto insurance companies that has been largely facilitated by the mass uptake and use of price comparison sites. Car insurance is required by law so It simply must be bought by every individual with a car. This puts price up there as the primary competitive factor.

A recent negative example in the insurance market was when payment protection insurance policies (PPI’s) were uncovered by the FSA to be negligent drafted or having been fraudulently marketed. This has lead to a huge amount of litigation and firms being created for the single purpose of acting as agents by which customers can claim back any PPI that is covered by the FSA’s investigations. Compare travel insurance on the web for the best deal. Another questionable product is identity theft insurance that claims to refund the subject for losses on account of cyber fraud or identity theft. However many people are unaware that the bank is in almost all instances liable for such acts.