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This is Fred Ball for Zions Bank, speaking on business.

Before InsurQuote, getting a single quote for auto or homeowners insurance took half a day. The process lasted hours as agents flipped through lengthy manuals comparing a potential customer's personal information against a provider's guidelines. Now, thanks to InsurQuote, the entire process takes only a few minutes.

The foundation of InsurQuote rests upon software designed by David Whetten. David worked as an insurance agent while studying computer science. He grew tired of the lengthy process, and created a computer program that automatically compared a customer's information against the manual and generated an insurance quote. David enjoyed developing his software more than quoting insurance, so, in 1984, he moved to Utah, invested his life savings and formed InsurQuote. Soon, over 85 percent of the independent insurance agencies in Utah were using InsurQuote's software.

In 1993, David's neighbor, Bill Woahn joined InsurQuote to help market the technology. After raising several million dollars in capital from local investors, InsurQuote spread nationally and developed more services, including software for insurance companies to compare rates against competing providers. In 1995, InsurQuote partnered with Consumer Reports and developed an automobile insurance quoting service. So popular was InsurQuote's service that on the first day of operation the company received 84,000 requests for insurance quotes. When the popularity of the Internet increased during the late 90s, InsurQuote partnered with other companies such as Intuit, maker of Quicken software, to offer an online quoting service.

In addition to their original services, David and Bill formed The Insurance Advocate, which allows consumers to receive auto and home insurance quotes over the phone for over 100 insurance providers in Utah, as well as write policies for many of those companies. Bill says they have plans to soon spread the service to other states as well.

For Zions Bank, I'm Fred Ball. I'm speaking on business.

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