In Mountain View, Google launched on Monday a price comparison service for insurances in France. No spectacular press release this time, on the contrary the website is currently in beta. To access it, you need to enter that url or to enter the right keywords on Google.
For now, users can get price comparisons for only 7 companies : 4assur, AllSecur (Allianz), Acomme Assure, Aloa Assurances (Covéa), Active Assurances et SOS Malus. On the website, a link offers to any insurance operating in France to join the comparison service. Google wants to get user reviews before making it official.
Only car insurances are concerned for now, but obviously Google plans on adding other categories, as we can see on the website.
The firm, which bought BeatThatQuote in 2011 only offers the same service in the UK, launched in 2012. Car Insurance Search is very successful there, and counts 128 partners.
In France, there is quite a lot of price comparison services for auto-insurance : notably Assurland.com, Hyperassur.com, Lelynx.fr, automotocompare.fr, kelassur.com, etc.
The service is not to be seen as a competitor, it offers more visibility (assurland belongs to Covéa, which is already a Google partner). In the end, it’s not really a new service which Google wants to offer, it’s a separate Search Engine for car insurances, like Google Shopping, for example.
From the user point of view, it centralizes the prices of many insurances. The service is still legally offered by BeatThatQuote, as specified on the website, and is paid by the insurance companies.
All in all it’s bad news for the other comparators, as Google Car Insurance Search in France arrives just at the right moment, when a new law will allow any insurance customer to put an end to a contract anytime after one year.