I am reading in Springwise about Zuzzid, which is a website aimed to help users to tell the goods and the bads of insurers.

The financial services industry in general, and specially the insurance industry, has a problem of information asymetry. It is difficult to compare products since information is opaque, or/and it is difficult to interpret that information (financial background requiered). Additionally, at the time you know there is something wrong in your policy, it is too late. Yo may discover that a life insurance does not cover driving accidents, or that a health insurance can expelled you after a certain age.

Goverments try to regulate to prevent those sort of problems. However it is imposible to regulate everything so that consumers should find alternative ways of “defending” themselves. The most popular being -of course- buzzing. For ages the financial industry is a one of buzzes coming and going. That may explain why sometimes people do not change banks even though the offers are very attractive.

Zuzzid tries to bring that sort of buzzing into the Internet. I would say it is a sort of web 2.0 model applied to insurance.

I love the idea but I think in the case of Zuzzid it is not well rounded. There are two problems:

1. Zuzzid is open to anybody. To be accurate and rigorous there should be an opinion per user. What happens now with Zuzzid is that it can be used for insurers to fight to each other. More marketing here…
2. Zuzzid belongs to an insurance company, Norwich Union, so that there is a parciality issue here.

I think the idea should be better implemented in an insurance broker’s scope, with only its clients being able to opinate. For me that formula is more accurate and rigorous, so that it is more useful for the prospective client. Additionally, since the feedback is based on products sold by the broker, the client realises the quality of the financial entities/products, and the quality of the broker that participates.

Yes, I know it is a far less ambitious approach than Zuzzid, but we all know that goods buzzes are those you know are reliable…