Recent media coverage in Metro highlighted the problem of the small print when buying travel insurance. A boy's family were lumbered with a £4,000 rescue bill after the boy fell into difficulty in India whilst paragliding. Although the family had taken comprehensive insurance, which included 'dangerous sports' such as Hand gliding, Paragliding was not covered; in this case the small print was very small.

Research conducted by The Usability Company demonstrated how difficult it was for users to get a 'full picture' quote online for family travel insurance from the following companies by testing with real users:

www.Americanexpress.co.uk
www.columbusdirect.co.uk
www.directline.com
www.eaglestar.co.uk
www.endsleigh.co.uk
www.thomascook.com

'All I want is a quote' was a familiar frustrated cry from participants that could not understand why in general the companies required so much personal information, which invariably slowed down their progress through the site.

Four out of six users couldn't understand what they were purchasing cover for. They had been asked to find adequate cover for Scuba Diving. It was generally agreed that people would have to phone up to see if they were in fact covered for the less common sports.

Perhaps the greatest flaw was that users did not find it easy to find a telephone number throughout the numerous stages of the process.

When pressed to finish the process with each insurer, all participants could find a travel policy of some sort on the sites. However users admitted that under real world circumstances most would have given up and gone elsewhere.

Users do not want to be required to enter personal information just to get a quote; they are more likely to proceed with buying the insurance if the quote process is as quick and simple as possible.

The sites need to be made easy to read for all users. 3 out of the 6 sites tested were difficult to follow for users without domain knowledge of the insurance sector.

The number of consumers booking through a travel agent has dropped from 74% in 2002 to 64% in 2001. In the same period, the volume of bookings at internet-only travel agencies increased from 8% to 17% (forrester.com)

The message is clear, users are turning to the web in increasing numbers and the usability of the site will determine the winners and losers in the online insurance sector.

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