(It’s where the action is)
Lisa Miller talks with a Tallahassee homeowner with Hurricane Michael damage, October 12, 2018
Lest you need a reminder about how pervasive insurance is in our lives, look no further than Google, the search engine. The most Googled financial question in Florida during the past year? Yep, you guessed it: Insurance. That’s according to an analysis of Google search terms by the website TermLife2Go, which looked at the most asked questions concerning money and finance by state. What we don’t know: why?
The website reviewed data from Google Trends and gathered all the financial topics people are searching. Then they looked at their search popularity based on geography. The result was the most googled financial topics by state during the past year.
Insurance was also the most popular search term in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. While we don’t know why, we can certainly hypothesize. Hurricane Irma struck in late 2017 and Hurricane Michael in late 2018 generating lots of claims and interest in insurance coverage. Being the third most populous state in the country, with mandatory automobile insurance, lots of high-risk natural hazards (hurricanes, flooding, lightning, etc.), and granted, some of the steepest insurance rates that naturally follow, may also have something to do with the popularity of the search term.
Income tax was the most googled term in 23 states. That’s a very high percentage, but then again, the new tax laws took effect this year, leaving those residents in states with an income tax with a limited deduction going forward. Florida, of course, is one of seven states without an income tax.
LMA Newsletter of 8-26-19
