If .insurance was available as part of your domain name, would you want it? Depending on the nature of your business, something like yachts.insurance might be catchy, no?
As of May, .insurance will be available to qualified businesses as a top level domain (TLD). To learn more about how to qualify and how to register a domain name, visit
fTLD.com to learn about this new domain name program and how to qualify for it and register a preferred domain name.
Only businesses that can prove they are in the insurance business will be able to get these names, and they also have to be able to prove that the domain will lead to a site maintained by the insurance business.
Laird Rixford, president of Insurance Technologies Corporation (
ITC) said these domains can be a good marketing tool, but only if they are used appropriately. “The .INSURANCE top level domain is good for companies that have a brand. Something like AMAX.insurance, Freeway.insurance, or Progressive.insurance. Otherwise, you risk complicating the situation as people will still probably want to add the .com. Time will tell if they help with search engine rankings. Though we caution against pairing them with exact match domains as that can be considered spammy and lead to a drop in the rankings,” he said.
From May 5 to May 8, founding members of fTLD will be able to apply for domain names on a first come, first served basis. Such names need to have already been registered with the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH). Any domains registered during this period must be activated by June 17.
From May 9 to June 8, any other insurance businesses which have registered trademarks with TMCH can request domain names, again on a first come, first served basis.
From June 9 to June 14, founding members alone will be able to register names. General availability of names will open on June 15.
