Insurance company I use to work for made it really difficult to actually buy their car insurance online cos they'd virtually always loose money if you bought their online deals. The website tried to get you to phone with your quote so that sales reps could bump your price up for basically no reason. If this was too much then they'd pretend to talk to their manager for a few mins to "see if they could get you a good deal" come back on the phone and make up another price for you. Worked on old people best. Lovely.
Did it increase total profit? I won't pick up the phone unless I have no other option, and I won't call someone just to get a quote. Besides, those sales rep cost money too.
I bet it doesn't make any more profit than an equivalent service managed fully online, but making all the people in the current operation redundant is "politically" difficult (or even impossible/very costly depending on employment laws) so they continue as-is.
