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Assetsure News 8th October 2007     UK Insurance Consumers Changing Shopping Habits The internet is changing the way that consumers shop for Uk home Insurance. Traditionally, home building insurance has been purchased directly from the mortgage provider with some people opting to do their own shopping around, whether directly or by using the services of a local insurance broker. In the 1980s, direct line changed the shape of the way insurance was purchased by persuading consumers with a never ending barrage of advertisements that by cutting out the middleman( the broker), you could actually obtain cheaper property insurance uk. This clever piece of marketing gave birth to a whole plethora of direct insurance companies and for a while many offered cheap home insurance premiums. The poor old home insurance broker started to be viewed as an insurance dinosaur, trips to his office where time consuming and people were finding it quicker to call direct. However, today's clued up internet savvy insurance purchaser knows that all that glistens is not gold and quite simply not everyone can offer the cheapest home insurance. Calls to a dozen direct insurance writers will soon show that a broad array of quotes can be obtained some cheap , some not so cheap. Insurance brokers however have started to enjoy a little bit of a renaissance and are now coming back in to fashion. Consumers have been educated to shop further a field for their insurance needs and now many don't expect to receive a local service where you can actually work in off the street and sit down and talk to a broker. Many consumers prefer the anonymity of the telephone or the internet, even better still. Insurance brokers have now mutated in to companies with the wonderful title of aggregators, these new style insurance brokers are promising to research the home and motor insurance market for you to find the best deal. The appeal of these companies is that they are online and by simply completing a few details, they will check the rates with a large number of insurers for you. However, i can testify myself that two weeks ago, i used three aggregator sites to obtain a lower home insurance quote and known of them were able to match the deal provided by my local insurance broker. Local insurance brokers who have an interest in IT are now also reinventing them on the internet, demographically, they are now able to trade in much wider areas than previous. Your traditional local home insurance broker was able to sell usually only in his local area unless of course he was able to part with vast sums of money to advertise in national publications such as yellow pages. Now many are choosing to advertise on the Internet as a means of acquiring business on a national basis. Whilst there is still a large number of people that demand a local service, more and more people simply don't care where their insurance provider is situated providing of course the service and the premium are good. Whilst there has been a backlash against overseas call centres in the last year or so, this is really as they are perceived as offering poor service. The bulk of consumers just the want the telephone answered quickly and to be provided with a cheap home insurance quotation as quickly as possible. The internet tis providing a new medium for obtain quotations and the beauty is that consumers can choose to obtain quotes when it is convenient for them , on the while this is in the evenings when the pressures of the day have subsided and more time can be devoted to completing online forms. However as in previous years, there is no one home insurance product provider that is offering the cheapest rates and as always, the only way you are going to guarantee paying the lowest premium is to shop around or get someone to shop around for you. Don't be fooled by the random save X from you home insurance quote line, the number of factors that are involved in calculating a home insurance premium almost guarantee that your own set of circumstances are unique and after all, it is only yourself your interested in     back to top   Copyright Assetsure Limited 2007