If we are unable to maintain existing relationships with insurance providers in our
marketplace, or unable to add new insurance providers, we may be unable to offer our consumers the shopping experience they expect. This deficiency could reduce consumers confidence in our services, making us less popular with consumers. As a
result, consumers could cease to use us, or use us at a decreasing rate.
In addition, we derive revenue as a result of subsidy payments
made by carriers to us on behalf of their agents. Our insurance carrier customers often provide subsidies for the benefit of agents to offset agents costs in connection with selling insurance policies from our referrals. Our carrier customers
have no obligation to provide such subsidies and may reduce the amount of such subsidies or cease providing them at any time. If our carrier customers were to reduce the amounts of or cease providing such subsidies, our insurance agent customers may
terminate or reduce the extent of their relationships with us. Because our insurance provider customers can stop buying from us, or spend less with us, at any time and our insurance carrier customers may cease providing subsidies to our insurance
agent customers at any time, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected with little to no notice.
We depend on search engines, display advertising, social media, email, content-based online advertising and other online sources to attract consumers to
our websites or marketplace, and if we are unable to cost-effectively attract consumers and convert them into quote requests that we can sell to our insurance provider customers, our business and financial results may be harmed.
Our success depends on our ability to attract online consumers to our websites or marketplace and convert those consumers into quote requests
that we can sell to our insurance provider customers. We depend, in part, on search engines, display advertising, social media, email, content-based online advertising and other online sources for our website traffic. We are included in search
results as a result of both paid search listings, where we purchase specific search terms that result in the inclusion of our advertisement, and, separately, organic searches that depend upon the content on our sites.
Search engines, social media platforms and other online sources often revise their algorithms and introduce new advertising products. If one
or more of the search engines or other online sources on which we rely for website traffic were to modify its general methodology for how it displays our advertisements, resulting in fewer consumers clicking through to our websites, our business
could suffer. In addition, if our online display advertisements are no longer effective or are not able to reach certain consumers due to consumers use of ad-blocking software, our
business could suffer.
If one or more of the search engines or other online sources on which we rely for purchased listings modifies or
terminates its relationship with us, our expenses could rise, we could lose consumer traffic to our websites, and a decrease in consumer traffic to our websites, for any reason, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial
condition and results of operations. Consumer traffic to our websites and the volume of quote requests generated by consumer traffic varies and can decline from to time. For example, quote requests decreased from 3,457,000 in the three months ended
March 31, 2018 to 3,018,000 in the three months ended June 30, 2018, increased to 3,044,000 in the three months ended September 30, 2018, increased to 3,284,000 in the three months ended December 31, 2018, increased to 4,113,000
in the three months ended March 31, 2019, increased to 4,519,000 in the three months ended June 30, 2019, increased to 5,516,000 in the three months ended September 30, 2019 and increased to 5,863,000 in the three months ended
December 31, 2019. Quote requests increased to 7,392,000 in the three months ended March 31, 2020. Additionally, even if we are successful in generating traffic to our websites, we may not be able to convert these visits into consumer
quote requests.
We currently compete with numerous other online marketing companies, and we expect that competition will intensify. Some
of these existing competitors may have more capital or complementary products or services than we do, and they may leverage their greater capital or diversification in a manner that adversely affects our competitive position. In addition, other
newcomers, including major search engines and content aggregators, may be able to leverage their existing products and services to our disadvantage. We may be forced to expend significant resources to remain competitive with current and potential
competitors. If any of our competitors are more successful than we are at attracting and retaining consumers, or if we are unable to effectively convert visits into consumers quote requests, our business, financial condition and results of
operations could be materially adversely affected.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could adversely affect our
business, results of operations and financial condition.
In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to spread throughout the United States and the world and has resulted in authorities implementing numerous measures to contain the virus, including travel
bans and restrictions, quarantines, shelter-in-place orders, and business limitations and shutdowns. As a result, we are unable to accurately predict the full impact
that COVID-19 will have on our results from operations, financial condition, liquidity and cash flows
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