The long-running economic downturn has turned U.S. drivers into a nation of online auto-insurance comparison shoppers. One major insurer has come up with a plan to help its insurance agents get more Internet-savvy and win some of that business back.

Estimates "suggest now that the vast majority of people start their insurance shopping experience on the Internet one way or another, regardless of how they ultimately end up buying," said Glenn M. Renwick, president and chief executive of Progressive Corp. (PGR), during the company's quarterly conference call with investors Wednesday. "When you've got that kind of a initial feed system, the likelihood of it flowing through to people who can actually sell on the Internet is going to be stronger," he said.

The share of Progressive's auto-insurance policies that are sold by agents has been dropping steadily in recent quarters, while its direct-to-customer channel has been growing. In July, Progressive's agency-originated auto-insurance policies in force fell 1%, while direct-to-consumer sales increased 12%. A marketing deal that Progressive announced Thursday with online marketing expert Web.com Group Inc. (WWWW) will offer agents a discount on Web site and Internet marketing services to help them gain traction online.

Progressive estimated that about half its independent agents lacked an Internet presence, while about 73% of drivers shopped online for auto insurance, though 67% go on to close the deal with an agent.

Jeffrey Stibel, president of Web.com, said insurance agents are still in "the early innings" of setting up Web sites.

He said individual agents have an opportunity to win business from online shoppers. Most of those insurance shoppers don't go to Web sites operated by insurance companies to buy, he said. "What most of them do is go to Google," the Internet search engine operated by Google Inc. (GOOG).

One service that Web.com provides is so-called search-engine optimization, which helps an agent's Web site pop up first on search engines when a shopper in their area types in keywords relating to auto insurance.

Web.com's Stibel predicted that online insurance shopping will follow the same pattern as online automobile shopping, where dealers beefed up their Internet presence to catch the attention of the growing numbers of online shoppers. "The smarter offline companies are bringing their business online," he said.

Shares of Progressive were up 0.8% recently, to $16.47. Web.com shares were off 1.7% at $6.21.

-By Lavonne Kuykendall, Dow Jones Newswires; 312-750 4141; lavonne.kuykendall@dowjones.com