Insurance Comparison Sites
Tesco has recently announced that it is a launching a new web site that will
allow people to search for cheaper motor insurance by comparing products online
from a variety of insurers not just itself. It is believed that Tescos new
search
insurance portal will have access to at least
25 % of the insurance market.
There has been a glut recently of these new style aggregator sites, and the
purchase of insurance has moved on a long way since Direct Line broke the mould
in the 1980s by encouraging the public to cut out the middleman and go direct to
purchase their insurance. Aggregator sites work by receiving a a fee for each
piece of business that is placed with an insurer.
The insurance buying public have since seen through this marketing ploy
realising that most companies claim to be the cheapest but in reality they are
not. Although motor insurance was the first product to be targeted by the direct
writers, Home Buildings and Contents quickly followed. The circle has now turned
and the insurance buying public are demanding that rather than waste time
phoning a large number of insurance organisations, they want to visit one or two
sites and obtain quotes from the whole of the market. It is interesting that
Tesco have cottoned on to this fact and are thus seeking to earn referral fees
on the cases where their own rates are not the most competitive.
The odd thing is, these aggregator sites are really online insurance brokerages
offering access to a number of insurance schemes. However, they differ from
genuine insurance brokerages in many ways. Firstly and probably most
importantly, they are not offering any advice, if you speak to your local high
street
insurance broker, you are able to benefit from
his experience and he is likely to have access to wide range of markets anyway.
It must be remembered that insurance brokerages have existed for many years
because they are experts at matching customer’s needs with products. Just
because a produce is cheap, it doesn’t always follow that it will suitable for
your needs, particularly if you require business use extensions etc
Secondly, when you receive a quote from the comparison website, it does need to
be checked carefully. You may find that when you are referred to the actual
insurers web site that the quote will change. Also it is important to check your
offer most carefully, sometimes the form on the aggregator’s site will produce a
quotation with a fairly high excess. (The excess is the portion of the loss that
you have to pay yourself). This excess will lower the premium but it is also on
top of any compulsory excess that the policy might have. When comparing prices,
always compare the excess do get a truly comparative quote.
The writer off this article has recently renewed his own car insurance. Three
aggregator sites were contacted and a variety of quotes were offered and some
were cheaper initially but on contacting the companies, the prices did increase.
On telephoning the existing insurance broker, they were happy to reduce the
premium to keep the business.
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