Highlights
- The dataset: This report draws on over 220,000 AI source citations, collected with prompts specific to the insurance industry. The underlying AI responses, from four AI models, were gathered in 12 countries throughout Q2 2026.
- Reddit is the single most-cited domain overall, at about 3% of all citations: It climbed to #1 in the back half of the window.
- YouTube slid from #5 to #29 (−77% share): While rankingsegurosespana.com surged from #30 to #7, the period's biggest climber.
- Reddit alone makes up 16% of ChatGPT's citations: A single forum accounts for one in six of its sources.
- 55% of Google AI Overview's citations are from commercial domains: The most brand-direct model in the set.
- 74% of top sources differ between any two models: Only about 26% of each pair's top-20 cited domains are shared.
Which sources should you target to get cited as an insurance brand?
Each model's distinctive top sources, and the citation character they add up to:
| Model | Top sources | Citation character |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | reddit.com, canstar.com.au, forbes.com, jdpower.com, rastreator.mx | Community-dominated |
| Google AI Overview | reddit.com, insurancebusinessmag.com, canstar.com.au, choice.com.au, finder.com.au | Comparison + trade media |
| Grok | forbes.com, reddit.com, youtube.com, jdpower.com, canstar.com.au | News + social + ratings |
| Microsoft Copilot | rankingsegurosespana.com, forbes.com, usnews.com, insurancebusinessmag.com, rankia.com | Regional rankings + editorial |
How have AI source rankings changed over time in the insurance industry?
Splitting the ~15.8-week window at its midpoint and comparing each domain's citation share in the first half against the second surfaces large movements among the top sources.
The headline reversal is video versus community. YouTube fell from the #5 most-cited domain to #29, shedding about 77% of its citation share, while Reddit rose to #1, more than tripling its share. Social platforms tumbled alongside YouTube, instagram.com (#14 → #28) and facebook.com (#17 → #30), as did the ratings site jdpower.com (#7 → #25). On the way up, regional comparison and ranking sites surged: rankingsegurosespana.com jumped from #30 to #7, with rates.ca (#27 → #12), rastreator.mx (#29 → #16), and insurance.com (#23 → #14) all climbing hard. Ranks are computed on each domain's share of citations within its half, not raw counts.
What type of content do AI models cite for insurance?
We classified every cited domain by category, commercial, editorial, user-generated, reference, institutional, using a global domain registry. Commercial sites lead in every model, but the mix beyond that is where the models diverge.
Google AI Overview is the most brand-direct, sending 54.5% of its citations to commercial domains, it will quote the insurer's or comparison site's own page. Microsoft Copilot is the most editorial, with 34.4% going to comparison and review media. ChatGPT is the crowd model: 18.3% of its citations go to user-generated content like Reddit and YouTube, more than three times Microsoft Copilot's UGC share. For an insurer, own-site and product content moves Google AI Overview, third-party comparison reviews move Microsoft Copilot, and authentic community presence on Reddit moves ChatGPT.
Do AI models cite local-language content for insurance?
Insurance is intensely regulated and priced market by market, and the models reflect that: across all non-English prompts, 65.5% of citations went to a local-country domain. But the rate swings hard by language.
Dutch and Swedish insurance questions stay overwhelmingly on home-country domains, consumentenbond.nl, independer.nl, konsumenternas.se, and compricer.se anchor those markets. Spanish sits lowest at 48.1%, unsurprising given the Spanish prompts span Spain, Mexico, and Argentina, fragmenting the "local" signal across three ccTLDs. This is a ccTLD proxy, not true language detection, so these figures understate genuine local-language coverage.
Which AI model relies most on local sources for insurance?
The localization gap between models is real and consistent. Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Overview rely on local sources the most in most European markets, while Grok and ChatGPT most often fall back to global English-language and .com domains in the harder markets.
Two patterns stand out. In Dutch, every model leans heavily on local sources, Google AI Overview reaches 95.6% local and even the lowest, ChatGPT, sits at 88.0%. In Italian, the models split sharply: Google AI Overview and Grok stay around 79% and 71% local while ChatGPT drops to 46.3%, leaning on .com insurance media instead. Google AI Overview returned no cited sources for French-language insurance prompts in this window, so that cell is n/a rather than zero.
Should insurance companies optimize for each AI model separately?
Yes, almost entirely. We built each model's most-cited domains for insurance and compared every pair to see how many sources they share. The average overlap is 26.4%, meaning 73.6% of top-cited sources differ between any two models.
The band is unusually tight. Google AI Overview and Grok are the closest pair, sharing 10 of their top domains, both leaning on reddit.com, insurancebusinessmag.com, canstar.com.au, forbes.com, and which.co.uk. Every other pair sits at exactly 25.0%, sharing 8 of 20. No two models are far apart, but none are close. An insurance brand optimizing for one AI model is absent from roughly 74% of the domains the other models prefer.
How many sources does each AI model cite per answer?
The models differ by more than 4x in how many sources they pull into a single answer.
Grok cites 26.3 sources per response, about 4.3x ChatGPT's 6.1, and a single Grok answer reached as many as 107 cited sources. Grok's spread is also enormous, reflecting a model that sometimes dumps dozens of citations and sometimes only a handful; the other three are far more consistent. Grok offers many more slots per answer but each carries less weight, while ChatGPT's short citation lists make every included source disproportionately valuable.
Context
This analysis draws from Temso's AI visibility monitoring platform, which tracks how brands appear in AI model responses across ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Grok, and Google AI Overview. The dataset covers insurance-related prompts, choosing, comparing, and recommending car, home, health, and life insurance, brokers, and comparison platforms, across 12 countries and 7 languages between 10 March and 29 June 2026.
It describes which sources AI models cite, not whether those sources are accurate or whether the recommendations are good. A citation is not an endorsement. The data reflects the prompts and markets monitored, weighted toward English-speaking and Western European/Latin American markets, and is observational. Where a model produced few or no cited sources for a given market (Google AI Overview in French), we flag the gap rather than infer a rate from thin data.
Methodology
How we measured this
We collected the answers four AI models gave to insurance prompts across 12 countries and 7 languages over roughly 15.8 weeks, then extracted every web source each model cited. The analysis rests on over 220,000 cited sources drawn from 22,063 model responses, comfortably above the thresholds required for proportion and trend estimates. Cross-model overlap was measured on each model pair's top-20 most-cited domains; domain categories (commercial, editorial, UGC, reference, institutional) were assigned from a global domain registry; temporal analysis split the window at its midpoint and compared each domain's share of citations in each half. Model coverage varied across the observation window, so temporal movements are reported as relative ranks within each half.
Localization is measured by a country-code top-level-domain (ccTLD) proxy, a citation counts as "local" if the domain's ccTLD matches the prompt's market, so those figures are directional and exclude English-language prompts, which sit overwhelmingly on generic domains. With only four models, the overlap figure is a descriptive average of six pairs rather than an inferential estimate.
Frequently asked questions
Do different AI models really cite different sources for the same insurance question?
Yes, dramatically so. Any two models share only about 26% of their top-20 cited domains, meaning roughly 74% of the sources one model relies on are absent from another's top list. There is no single AI search result to optimize for.
Which model should an insurer or comparison site prioritize?
It depends on the content you can produce. Google AI Overview rewards your own commercial pages (54.5% of its citations are commercial). Microsoft Copilot rewards third-party comparison and review media (34.4% editorial). ChatGPT rewards community presence, 18.3% of its citations go to user-generated content, and 16% of everything it cites is Reddit alone.
Does writing in the local language help insurance AI visibility?
In non-English markets, yes, more than in many industries. Across non-English prompts, 65.5% of citations went to a local-country domain, and Dutch and Swedish insurance questions stay 85–93% local. Spanish and French sit lowest (~48%), pulled toward global .com portals. English-language markets pull essentially no local-ccTLD sources at all.
Which AI model relies most on local sources?
Google AI Overview and Microsoft Copilot rely on local sources the most in most European markets, Google AI Overview hits 95.6% local citations in Dutch and Microsoft Copilot 86.1% in Swedish. Grok and ChatGPT cite local sources least in the harder markets, with Grok at 45.0% local in Spanish and ChatGPT at 46.3% in Italian.
How many sources does each model cite per answer?
Grok cites the most by far, about 26 sources per response, with some answers exceeding 100. ChatGPT cites the fewest at about 6. That 4.3x gap means each source in a ChatGPT answer carries far more weight than one of Grok's many citations.
Are AI citation rankings stable over time?
No. Over ~15.8 weeks, YouTube fell from the #5 most-cited domain to #29 while Reddit rose to #1, and a Spanish insurance-ranking site climbed 23 places into the top 10. AI source rankings churn fast, so visibility has to be defended continuously, not won once.
Why does Reddit appear so prominent for insurance?
Reddit is the single most-cited domain overall and is the center of ChatGPT's behavior in particular, one in six of ChatGPT's citations point to Reddit. For insurance brands, that makes authentic, well-regarded Reddit presence a genuine AI-visibility lever, not just a community-management afterthought.
