Broker or comparison site: what a broker's own pages have to state

Two requests behind one insurance question

"Car insurance for a new driver in [town]" can come from a buyer who wants the lowest premium for a standard policy and is happy to fill in a form. It can also come from one who has been refused twice, has a claim on file and wants a person to take the file on. The words overlap and the needs do not, and an answer to either can draw on quite different pages.

Comparing prices side by side is a real need, and this article says nothing against the sites that meet it. A brokerage's pages can answer the second buyer, but only if they state that the brokerage handles that buyer: which risks, with which markets, by whom, and what happens after the policy is bound. The rest of this article is about those statements.

What only the brokerage can say about itself

Some facts cannot come from anyone else's page. Who at your firm handles a line, which markets you place it with, what your review of a buyer's cover involves, what you do when a claim comes in, your hours, your licenses: each exists in public only because you state it. An answer that describes a brokerage by what it does, rather than by a price, needs sentences like those to quote.

Together they are the brokerage's unique selling proposition, stated as facts rather than as a slogan. Write them in the first person plural, with the firm's own details where the brackets are. The full list of facts a brokerage states is on the insurance brokers overview; the table takes only the ones that answer the second buyer.

The last row matters as much as the others. A buyer who wanted an instant online price is better served by a page saying you do not offer one than by a form implying you do. A statement of what the firm does not do is still a fact, and an answer can repeat it.

Write the claims facts as questions with answers under them, since "what do you do when I have a claim?" is what a buyer types. In our audit of 9,483 small business websites (40 trades, 90 metros, late August to early September 2026), 61.5% of sites had no question-and-answer content of any kind; a claims page built as an answer page is one way out of that group. The figure covers the whole sample, with no broker cut.

The page that walks a buyer through working with you

Advice, placement and claims help are easiest to state as a sequence, because that is how a buyer meets them. A page on how the brokerage works can take a buyer from the first call to the first renewal, one step at a time, with the firm's own details in the brackets:

1. The first call: who takes it, what they ask, and how long it lasts.
2. The review: what [name] looks at, and what the buyer brings to it.
3. Going to market: how many insurers see the application for this line, and how long their answers take.
4. The choice: how the terms are set side by side, and who explains the differences.
5. Binding: when cover starts, which documents arrive, and where they are kept.
6. During the year: changes to the policy, certificates on request, and the claims number.
7. Renewal: when the review happens, and what it covers.

Each step is a fact about the firm and none is a promise about a policy. A buyer weighing a form against a person can read, before calling, what the person will do.

Writing the difference without naming or knocking anyone

The pages describe the brokerage and stop. They do not describe comparison sites, rank the brokerage against them, or suggest what a buyer loses by using one. A claim about someone else is a claim you cannot check for every case, and comparative statements in advertising are among the things to clear with your compliance function or counsel before they appear.

A comparative line can usually be turned into a fact about the firm:

• Instead of "better than any comparison site": "We place [line] with [number] insurers and go through the terms with you before you choose."
• Instead of "we always find the cheapest price": "We show you the premium and the cover from each insurer that offers terms."
• Instead of "we are there at claim time, unlike a website": "When you have a claim, call [number]; we stay with it until it closes."
• Instead of "real advice, not algorithms": "[Name], licensed for [line] in [jurisdiction], reviews every application before it goes out."

Each rewrite gives a buyer, and any answer that quotes the page, something to check, which is where a sentence's citability comes from. None of them needs a competitor in it.

Price: what a broker can state before there is a quote

The premium comes from the insurer that offers terms, once it has seen the risk, so a broker's page can rarely give one in advance. What the page can give is the rest of the price picture, with the firm's own details in the brackets:

• What information changes the premium for that line, in plain words: [factors].
• The brokerage's own fee, if it charges one: [amount] for [what], or none.
• Any minimum the firm works to, such as the smallest premium or fleet it places: [minimum].
• How long a quote takes once the application is complete: [time].

Leave out teaser figures such as "from [amount] a month" unless the firm can stand behind them for the buyers who ask, and clear any price statement the way your advertising is cleared. A price an answer repeats about you should be one you published and still mean.

Checking the words an answer uses about you

The panel set up in what being named means for a broker records whether you are named. For this question, read the answers that name you for the words they use about you: broker, agent, independent, compares several insurers, helps with claims, reviews cover. Then put those words beside the words on your pages. An AI recommendation that describes you draws that description from somewhere, and your pages are the one part of it you write.

Where an answer describes you as a price-comparison service, or leaves out claims help your pages describe, look for where that description could have come from: an old page, a directory category, a listing written years ago. Where your pages never state the thing, the fix is to state it. An answer that names a comparison site next to you is not something to correct; record it as one of the names beside yours, and keep reading.

For a first look before a panel exists, the free visibility check reports whether Claude names your brokerage and who it names instead, from a website and an email, written up by a person.