A Maltese case study : an investigation in the gap of web-based technologies for the insurance market in Malta

Abstract

This research paper is all about the study and analysis of the gap in online services currently present in the Maltese Insurance Market. The main aims were to bring out the customer’s attitude towards the companies in this market and the apparent gap in online services, as well as to interview key representatives and professionals in this market to bring out their opinion on why they think this gap exists in Malta. The benefit of this study is the understanding of how an industry in the financial sector goes about this transition from an offline service to an online one. Due to the approach of consulting the customers before the businesses, this means that it is a user-centred designed study. Aspects of this type of study were reviewed in the available literature along with other relevant subjects such as information systems. Through a qualitative study, a survey was released to the customers of this industry in order to gather the user’s opinion and to generate a response to whether or not online user services was a want or need in this particular market. With this study and with the data gathered from the quantitative research, interview questions were formulated as a qualitative study, in order to deliver this proven want or need to the companies themselves to find out their opinion on the feasibility of this system in their market. The study was performed through stages which were linked together and built upon each other. With the information gathered from the literature available on the topic, the survey was formulated, in order to review this literature’s relevance in the Maltese Insurance Market. The survey was then used as a base for the interview questions formulated later in the methodology, in order to receive the correct feedback that linked the answers of the respondents of the survey to the respondents of the interview. This is because the study revolved not around assumptions, but around what the user and company attitude is towards this gap.