This bear is not your typical kind of bear.
Started just last year, GoBear is a platform that allows users to search and rate insurance and financial products. What makes it different from other sites that offer price aggregation and rating is its user-oriented platform. According to Andre Hesselink, its CEO and Founder, GoBear “neither aggregates nor sells products”. It enables users, like us, to freely compare and select products based on what they actually need. It simplifies the already complicated parlance and benefits presentation of insurance and financial products.
The Process
Searching for products is easy at GoBear. Users should simply need to fill a couple of details to jumpstart their search, and they’ll be presented with various solutions that may be sorted by price, coverage score or rating.
Comparison sites usually show price and rating, but it’s different with GoBear especially on searching for Travel Insurance. The platform also shows coverage score, which basically reflects the overall quality of the product.
This gives the users the ability to quickly see the various benefits the products offer. If the users wish to know the exact benefits the products offers, he may choose to compare products and see which company offers the best deal.
Apart from travel insurance, GoBear also shows loans and credit card products from its institutional partners.
The Site
GoBear Philippines’ website is still in beta, and will be fully launched in September 2016. User experience is good, so far, but we must admit that some functionalities and buttons must be reworked. Its “COMPARE” button, for instance, is a little difficult to spot; and the color of the fonts – especially the neon green one – is somewhat hard to read.
The site is highly optimized for mobile. Kudos to the developers for considering this, and I’m pretty sure that GoBear is getting a lot of traffic from mobile devices.
The site loaded 8.4s because it loaded too many modules and site requests. During our test, the size of its front page loaded 1.92mb of files, which include images of its partners and blog thumbnails. The site users almost a megabyte of JavaScript during the initial page load, which delays the full rendering of the page.
We suppose that the site’s server is headquartered in Asia, particularly in Singapore because our test results got better when we tried accessing it using a Singapore-based test server. Test results got better but still reflected failing grade on image optimization and redirection.
[su_spoiler title=”Minize Redirects” style=”fancy” icon=”plus-circle”]
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://pix.btrll.com/partner/334886.png
- https://geo-um.btrll.com/v1/map_pixel/partner/51.png
- https://geo-um.btrll.com/v1/map_pixel/partner/51.png?set_aps=1&BR_APS=3V5BCF1c3JHMBuWP9zw&
- https://sync.mathtag.com/sync/img?mt_exid=32&mt_exuid=3V5BCF1c3JHMBuWP9zw&n=1469071895&
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://pixel.mathtag.com/event/js?mt_id=1044463&mt_adid=162596&v1=&v2=&v3=&s1=&s2=&s3=
- https://pixel.mathtag.com/event/js?mt_id=104446 … did=162596&v1=&v2=&v3=&s1=&s2=&s3=&mm_bnc&mm_bct
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- https://pixel.mathtag.com/event/js?01AD=3Z_I1Lk … did=162596&v1=&v2=&v3=&s1=&s2=&s3=&mm_bnc&mm_bct
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://www.google-analytics.com/r/collect?v=1& … d=UA-55364347-1&_r=1>m=GTM-5B6Q4J&z=1890956718
- https://stats.g.doubleclick.net/r/collect?v=1&a … 8.1469071890&jid=1878279933&_v=j44d&z=1890956718
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- https://www.google.com.au/ads/ga-audiences?v=1& … 071890&jid=1878279933&_v=j44d&z=1890956718&ipr=y
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://x.bidswitch.net/sync?dsp_id=80&user_id=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0&expires=30
- https://x.bidswitch.net/ul_cb/sync?dsp_id=80&user_id=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0&expires=30
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- https://x.bidswitch.net/sync?ssp=gmo&user_id=RgwvAbC7fDvHmoQA
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://ib.adnxs.com/getuid?https://sync.mathtag.com/sync/img?mt_exid=13&mt_mminit=1&mt_exuid=$UID
- https://ib.adnxs.com/bounce?%2Fgetuid%3Fhttps%3 … mt_exid%3D13%26mt_mminit%3D1%26mt_exuid%3D%24UID
- https://sync.mathtag.com/sync/img?mt_exid=13&mt_mminit=1&mt_exuid=8143567949386247893
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://loadm.exelator.com/load/?p=204&g=101&buid=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0&j=0
- https://loadm.exelator.com/load/?p=204&g=101&bu … -4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0&j=0&xl8blockcheck=1
- https://load.s3.amazonaws.com/pixel.gif
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://stats.g.doubleclick.net/r/collect?t=dc& … 469071890&jid=317706156&_u=SGAAgAAr~&z=880576536
- https://www.google.com/ads/ga-audiences?v=1&aip … 538.1469071890&jid=317706156&_v=j44d&z=880576536
- https://www.google.com.au/ads/ga-audiences?v=1& … 69071890&jid=317706156&_v=j44d&z=880576536&ipr=y
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://www.gobear.com.ph/
- https://www.gobear.com.ph/
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://ad.360yield.com/match?publisher_dsp_id= … nal_user_id=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0
- https://ad.360yield.com/ul_cb/match?publisher_d … nal_user_id=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://ad.sxp.smartclip.net/sync?type=host&dsp=40&dspuuid=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0
- https://ad.sxp.smartclip.net/img/trpx.gif
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://cm.g.doubleclick.net/pixel?google_nid=mediamath&google_cm&google_hm=mOFXkEISTwCXCp05pe-r0A
- https://cm.g.doubleclick.net/pixel?google_nid=m … _cm=&google_hm=mOFXkEISTwCXCp05pe-r0A&google_tc=
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://cm.g.doubleclick.net/pixel?google_nid=mediamath_dmp&google_cm
- https://pixel.mathtag.com/sync/img?mt_exid=1007 … le_gid=CAESEEtmAL9yL2hRByXFyCknP90&google_cver=1
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://dsum-sec.casalemedia.com/rum?cm_dsp_id= … nal_user_id=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0
- https://dsum-sec.casalemedia.com/rum?cm_dsp_id= … user_id=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0&C=1
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://jp-u.openx.net/w/1.0/sd?id=536872786&val=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0
- https://jp-u.openx.net/w/1.0/sd?cc=1&id=536872786&val=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://pixel.rubiconproject.com/tap.php?v=4222 … =98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0&expires=28
- https://pixel.rubiconproject.com/tap.php?cookie … =98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0&expires=28
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://stags.bluekai.com/site/2948?id=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0
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Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://stags.bluekai.com/site/4448?id=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0
- https://stags.bluekai.com/site/4448?dt=0&r=4360 … BB9N1E/66MPJ1pex+ExluBuNEestEeHBED+1uMW991c2Yi9=
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://sync.1rx.io/usersync/mediamathtest/98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0
- https://sync.1rx.io/usersync/mediamathtest/98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0?zcc=1&dspret=0
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://t4.liverail.com/?metric=csync&p=3061&s=98e15790-4212-4f00-970a-9d39a5efabd0
- https://scontent.lrcdn.net/outbound-cdn-static/lr.gif
Remove the following redirect chain if possible:
- https://www.gobear.com.ph/Cms_Data/Sites/GoBear/Themes/Default/images/bear_personal.svg
- https://www.gobear.com.ph/kooboo-404?returnUrl= … %2fThemes%2fDefault%2fimages%2fbear_personal.svg
[/su_spoiler]
I’m pretty sure that GoBear team is very much aware of this, and are already working hard to optimize their website further. Nevertheless, the overall user experience of the site is smooth, convenient and really filled with tons of discoveries.
Who is it for?
It’s for everyone looking for the best travel insurance, credit cards, and personal loans. As the first meta-search engine for financial products in the Philippines, the site can be a big help for people who are constant looking for such financial solutions.
The site’s ability to show the benefits and features of all products make it not just a platform for comparison, but a place to be educated and savings. For instance, a product may be cheap (in terms of price) but it doesn’t mean that it’s the best among the bunch of solutions available. The site covers more than just price or interest rate (in the case of credit cards and loans); it shows monthly payment and servicing costs for loans and rewards for credit cards.
Why GoBear?
We’ve initially pointed out the value of using GoBear, but we’d like to stress that the company operates differently compared to its competitors. Partners will never get the chance to advertise their products, and have their products pre-ranked. Users have all the command to sort, compare and choose.
GoBear tries to level the playing field by working with their partners to benefit them both. They constantly meet with their partners and also educates their partners on how they can make their processes more customer friendly. This is the reason why GoBear Philippines was able to increase their partner base quite significantly from April to June 2016.
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.
