Wal-Mart offering auto insurance - CBS News

The strategy marks Wal-Mart's latest flirtation with insurance marketing and also highlights how theretailer is trying to use its size to expand beyond food and other staples into a one-stop shoppingdestination as it seeks to bring in more shoppers to its site and its stores. Wal-Mart plans to promotethe insurance shopping service in its stores.

The service is available immediately in eight states including Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi,Missouri and Oklahoma, and will be available nationwide in the next few months.

Wal-Mart has had a relationship with Kazam, an entrepreneur, and his partners that dates backseveral years. For example, in 2009 Kazam and his team partnered with Wal-Mart to bringPetArmor, a generic version of a popular flea and tick preventative treatment, to Wal-Martcustomers. Kazam founded Velcera, which created the PetArmor brand and was acquired last yearby Perrigo. But recently, Wal-Mart has been working with Kazam in improving the experiencerelated to insurance products.

Wal-Mart decided that focusing on a pricecomparison service was the way to go.

Last month, Wal-Mart introduced a new moneytransfer service that it says will cut fees for itslow-income customers by up to 50 percentcompared with similar services elsewhere.That service is being rolled out in partnershipwith Ria Money Transfer, a subsidiary ofEuronet Worldwide Inc.

AutoInsurance.com, a division of Fort Lee, N.J.-based Tranzutary Insurance Solutions LLC, alicensed property and casualty insurance agency, was created after Wal-Mart realized there was anopportunity for a quicker service in which shoppers can buy and save on car insurance that providesthe final price, with no bait and switch tactics. Wal-Mart says car insurance is among the biggestmonthly expenses for customers, and for some, it can outpace health care costs.

Shoppers can log on to AutoInsurance.com or access the site through Wal-Mart's website.

The world's largest retailer has teamed up with AutoInsurance.com to let shoppers quickly find andbuy insurance policies online in real time to cut down costs.

Joshua Kazam, founder of AutoInsurance.com and the founder and chairman of Tranzutary, notedthat 90 percent of people compare prices online for products and services like airline tickets, but itssurvey shows that only one-in-five comparison-shop for auto insurance, because it's a complicatedprocess.

In 2012, Wal-Mart tested a program with Tranzutary to sell prepaid MetLife insurance policies in217 stores in Georgia and South Carolina. Then last April, it launched a test program inPennsylvania in which customers who purchased policies from AutoInsurance.com reported averageannual savings on their insurance of $1,168. At the same time, it displayed kiosks in Illinois whereshoppers could pick up a saving card that offered a discount on a new auto insurance policy soldthrough Esurance.

In a briefing with the media on Tuesday, Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of services for Wal-Mart U.S., said the Bentonville, Ark.-based discounter will be AutoInsurance.com's exclusive retailpartner and receive promotion payments in its role as marketer. AutoInsurance will earn acommission every time a policy is sold.

Customers can choose to either purchase the policy online immediately, speak with a licensed agentat 800-700-7500 or save the information and purchase later.

NEW YORK -- Wal-Mart is bringing one-stop shopping to another area: auto insurance.

It works this way: Customers log on to the site and provide their name, address, date of birth andcontact information. They can also have the site retrieve their current auto insurance policy,enabling AutoInsurance.com to automatically fill in the necessary coverage information for anapples-to-apples comparison. The free service offers customers multiple quotes from some of theleading national insurance carriers like Esurance, Safeco, and Progressive within minutes.

"Our customers too often have to settle for auto insurance policies that aren't the best fit and costmore than they want to spend," Eckert said.