► Which New Zealand Life and Health Insurance providers are maximising their market share online? Find out which life and health insurance providers are taking the lead in organic search and how they’re doing it. FIRST has investigated the organic search engine rankings for NZ consumer searches focused on life and health insurances, utilising FIRST’s Ranking Based Reach (RBR) analysis framework. In addition, a consumer survey was carried out to discover what is most important for Kiwis wishing to apply for an insurance. ► In this report we discovered: According to Standard & Poor’s the insurance market has room to grow due to population growth and the low rate of New Zealanders having a life insurance.* Therefore insurance providers should not miss out, but optimise their online visibility. Search results are broadly dispersed among a wide range of competitors, even more in mobile. In this competitive life and health insurance market, retailers are missing out optimising on the most cost effective marketing channel: Search. Currently Life Direct stands out in the search landscape followed by AA and Pinnacle Life capturing big proportion of the voice thanks to prominent organic presence. In our survey we revealed that 1 out of 3 Kiwis do not have any coverage due to high costs or would not qualify for insurance as they had health issues or wouldn’t need life insurance as they didn’t have any dependents. A considered digital strategy that integrates both organic and paid search should be a key customer acquisition and revenue driver for life and health insurance providers. Popular search phrases are missing from quite a few sites and in most cases very little is being done with organic search. FIRST uses its bespoke metric called RBR (Ranking Based Reach) to estimate how well each company is ranking in search engines. RBR provides a simple way to compare a website’s search engine rankings with its competitors. RBR is an estimate of the percentage of available search traffic a website will receive for a set of phrases – this gives the sites share of search or reach. It is weighted based on the popularity of each search phrase and the relative click through rate (CTR) of each ranking position.

1. Which websites are maximising their market share?
Searching for Life Insurances Online

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Calculating share of search
• Rankings Based Reach (RBR)* provides a simple way to compare a
website’s search engine rankings with its competitors.
• RBR is an estimate of the percentage of available search traffic a
website will receive for a set of phrases – this gives the sites share
of search or reach.
• It is weighted based on the popularity of each search phrase and the
relative click through rate (CTR) of each ranking position.
Source: Rankings Based Reach (RBR) is a methodology developed by First, http://www.firstdigital.co.nz

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Selected sites
Leading New Zealand life and health insurance sites were selected for Ranking Based
Reach (RBR) performance analysis.
Sites
aa.co.nz bnz.co.nz
pinnaclelife.co.nz kiwicover.co.nz
cigna.co.nz mas.co.nz
state.co.nz platinumlifeinsurance.co.nz
kiwibank.co.nz fmg.co.nz
mylifeplus.co.nz anz.co.nz
aia.co.nz partnerslife.co.nz
insuranceadvice.co.nz asb.co.nz
lifedirect.co.nz asteron.co.nz
sovereign.co.nz nib.co.nz
nzlife.co.nz amp.co.nz
fidelitylife.co.nz accuro.co.nz
westpac.co.nz onepath.co.nz

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What are people searching for?
Source: Google Keyword Tool, New Zealand exact match, May 2014
In order to investigate which websites are leading in search we researched frequently used
life and health insurance - related phrases.
Search Phrase
Local
searches per
month
Search Phrase
Local
searches
per month
life insurance 2400 compare health insurance 30
health insurance 1600 health insurance comparison 20
life insurance comparison 390 life insurance companies 20
life insurance quotes 320 international health insurance 20
life insurance calculator 170 health insurance companies 20
health insurance new zealand 140 cheap life insurance 20
life insurance online 90 life insurance payout 10
health insurance quotes 90 do i need life insurance 10
partners life insurance 90 life insurance quotes online 10
compare life insurance 50 life insurance for seniors 10
private health insurance 40 life insurance rates 10
lifetime insurance 30 health and life insurance 10
what is life insurance 30
Total searches per month
5,630
Total searches per year
67,560

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Google: Search engine results page 1
What the consumer sees: The top of the Google search results page for a search on “life insurance”
Kiwicover and Life
Direct are also very
present within the
paid search ranking
on fourth and fifth
position. In total there
are ranking 11
companies in the paid
search. That
represents the
maximum amount for
the 1 Page. This
market is highly
competitive.
Up to 3 keyword-related
Google ads lead the
Google ranking:
Pinnacle Life, Sovereign
and Cigna are ranking
under the top 3
positions for the paid
search term “life
insurance”.
Under the organic
search results a large
variety of the
analysed companies
rank on Google’s first
page starting with
Life Direct, followed
by AA, Pinnacle Life
and Cigna for the
search term “life
insurance”.

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0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
paid organic
Source: Chikita, 2010 (Organic Search) & Accuracast 2009 (Paid Search)
35% of users click
on the top organic
search result
Almost 95% of organic
traffic goes to the top 10
results
The importance of top rankings
Search engine position
Proportionofclicks

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0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
RankingsBasedReach
Rankings Based Reach: Natural Search
Source of ranking data: Google New Zealand, www.google.co.nz, May 2014.* includes all websites under the relevant domain name (eg, including www.)
MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY
As the RBR of these companies is 2% or
less, there is still a lot of room for
improvement.
The RBR leader is “Life Direct”
which reaches a fantastic RBR of
62%. The closest followers are
“AA” and “Pinnacle Life”. Most
banks rank in the middle field.
There are quite a few companies
“present“ within search, although the
overall RBR for half of all companies
is below 5%. These companies are
missing opportunities for potential
sales.

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0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
RankingsBasedReach
Rankings Based Reach: Natural Search (Mobile)
Source of ranking data: Google New Zealand, www.google.co.nz, May 2014.
* includes all websites under the relevant domain name (eg, including www.)
MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY
These websites can compete by
optimising for mobile searches.
Life Direct also maintains
it’s leading RBR position
in mobile search.
Sovereign falls back from
a 12% RBR score to 4%
in mobile search and will
need some improvement.
In mobile search, it is more important
than ever to rank on the first page.
Smart phones are critical shopping
tools with 74% of NZ users having
researched a product or service on
their mobile device*.
*Source: Scary eCommerce Statistics , www.ecommerce.org.nz May 2014.

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Search trends: Smaller and bigger players
Source: Relative total keyword performance on a normalised scale 1 to 100, Google Trends, New Zealand, May 2014
The chart illustrates that bigger players such as AMP and Sovereign show higher brand search volumes, compared to the “smaller “ players Life
Direct, FMG and OnePath.
To combat being left behind, runner-up companies need to drive consumer brand recognition via search, display, social and email
campaigns.

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0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
30.00%
35.00%
40.00%
Equally important Health insurance Life insurance Are not important
Consumer Research: Importance of insurances
This representative survey was carried out by 3Di Research on
the Great Sites platform May 2014 (n=1,915).
Question 1: Which insurance type would you consider as being most important?
More than 35% of Kiwis
mentioned that health such as
life insurance are equally
important.
Surprisingly, nearly 1 out of
10 respondents considered
life and health insurances as
not being important.

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0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
30.00%
35.00%
40.00%
Neither Life and health insurance Life insurance Health insurance
Consumer Research: Kiwis and their insurances
Question 2: Do you currently have a life or health insurance?
This representative survey was carried out by 3Di Research on
the Great Sites platform May 2014 (n=1,915).
The results of the study
show that more Kiwis
have a life than a health
insurance.
A bit more than 6 out of 10 New
Zealanders have a life or health
insurance or even both, consequently
4 out of 10 do not have any health or
life insurance at all.

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0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
30.00%
35.00%
40.00%
Directly go to the
website of a known
insurance provider
Search for insurance
information on
Google
Seek
recommendations
from friends or family
Visit the physical
branch of a known
insurance provider
My employer Visit other financial
websites (such as
interest.co.nz)
Consumer Research: Where do people search?
Question 3: Typically, where is the first place you go to find
information about a life or health insurance?
This representative survey was carried out by 3Di Research on
the Great Sites platform May 2014 (n=1,134).
Most Kiwis search for insurance information on the website of a
known provider, but also a large proportion go to Google’s
search engine. Ranking at a good position for insurance related
phrases in the search engine can be very beneficial and
increase sales.

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3.50
3.70
3.90
4.10
4.30
4.50
4.70
4.90
Reputation and credibility Range of cover options Responsiveness of agent Professional advice Easy termination
Consumer Research: Most important when considering an insurance
Question 4: What is most important to you when considering
an insurance? (rank the following on a scale of 1-5, 1 being
least important, 5 of great importance)
This representative survey was carried out by 3Di Research on
the Great Sites platform May 2014 (n=1,134).
Reputation and credibility
play the most important role
for Kiwis when considering
an insurance.
Interestingly,
termination
options play the
least important
role when
considering an
insurance.

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0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
30.00%
35.00%
40.00%
Would like to
have
coverage but
it is too
expensive
Have other,
more
important
financial
priorities
No
dependents
Lost my
coverage
when left job
Don’t trust life
insurance
providers
Too young Buying
process too
difficult
Don’t
understand
the benefits of
life insurance
Other (please
specify)
Consumer Research: Main reasons for not having an insurance
Question 5: Why don’t you have a life or health insurance?
This representative survey was carried out by 3Di Research on
the Great Sites platform May 2014 (n=709).
1 out of 3 Kiwis would like to
have coverage, but can’t afford
it and more than one quarter of
respondents mentioned that
they have more important
financial priorities. The vast majority of
people in the “other”
section mentioned that
they would not have a
health or life insurance
because they couldn’t
afford it, are too old or
did not qualify due to
health issues.

15. • According to Standard & Poor’s the insurance market has room to grow due
to population growth and the low rate of New Zealanders having a life
insurance.* Therefore insurance providers should not miss out, but optimise
their online visibility.
• Search results are broadly dispersed among a wide range of competitors,
even more in mobile. In this competitive life and health insurance market,
retailers are missing out optimising on the most cost effective marketing
channel: Search.
• Currently Life Direct stands out in the search landscape followed by AA and
Pinnacle Life capturing big proportion of the voice thanks to prominent
organic presence.
• In our survey we revealed that 1 out of 3 Kiwis do not have any coverage due
to high costs or would not qualify for insurance as they had health issues or
wouldn’t need life insurance as they didn’t have any dependents.
• A considered digital strategy that integrates both organic and paid
search should be a key customer acquisition and revenue driver for life
and health insurance providers.
Summary &
Observations
* Source: Life insurance sector profitability highlighted,
http://www.stuff.co.nz , May 2014
Life and health Insurances

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About FIRST.
Respected digital veterans are the foundation our agency is built upon: each team holds
a core capability that feeds into a business’ digital requirements. Our expertise in digital
has been built on over 14 years’ experience in digital strategy, analytics, conversion,
search marketing and digital campaigns.
FIRST, our award-winning team of internet marketers, has helped over 300 companies
across 100 industries achieve digital success. We provide companies with a digital
roadmap to success centered around a “digitally led” sales and marketing strategy.
Our services span search (SEO and SEM), email, performance media, conversion
optimisation and advanced analytics. Most importantly, our work is underpinned by a
focus on delivering the return on investment our clients expect.

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Contact us
Contact FIRST to find out more.
Phone +64 (9) 920 1740
Email info@firstdigital.co.nz
Web http://www.firstdigital.co.nz
http://www.linkedin.com/company/first-digital
http://www.firstdigital.co.nz/blog
Copyright © FIRST., part of the BeyondD Pty Ltd Group. http://www.firstdigital.co.nz
Our Vision
To be highly sought after for
making a measurable
difference
Our Mission
We’re a team focused on
transforming businesses and
creating market leaders
through digital marketing.
We innovate, test and
optimise to create a
competitive advantage to
dominate the digital channel.
Our data-driven approach
will keep things simple and
make a measurable
difference.
Our Focus
As a Google Certified
Analytics Partner (GACP),
we focus on smart customer
acquisition using search and
performance media,
maximising conversion
using best practice CRO and
helping NZ businesses
making the best possible
decisions based on
accurate, actionable web
analytics.
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