A look at how best to
compare motor insurance cover online
For
some, there is only one course to pursue when they want to compare
motor insurance online and that is to head straight for a price
comparison site quote form. The features of price comparison sites that
many find attractive are well-known, not least because of prominent TV
advertising of several of these services.
Their power is undisputed. There is no other way to so easily compare
so many quotes. But these sites have significant drawbacks. It has to
be asked how useful it is to know which policies are exceptionally
cheap in comparison to thousands of others. Certainly, to buy a policy
that is so dramatically under-priced in comparison to its peers simply
stores up later costs if a claim is needed. Such cover has a high
excess and, by necessity, passes many costs back to the consumer to
slash the price of the premium. Admittedly, in the absence of a claim,
money has been saved but in advance, you simply don't know if this will
be a year that you have an accident or not. To buy car insurance on the
basis that no claim is the only workable outcome is, self-evidently, a
faulty approach.
If buying the cheapest is not to be recommended when you compare motor
insurance via one of these quote aggregators, how should you make your
choice using one of them? Well, the key is to know what you're getting.
It's essential to find out as much as you need for an an informed
choice in terms of the associated cover. It's not unusual to find price
comparison sites wanting in this department. Policy information, if
available, is limited. As a result, it often pays to consult directly
with the insurance company website to learn the policy inclusions and
exclusions.
Indeed, if you compare motor insurance properly in this way, the
process becomes very far removed from simply quickly selecting a quote
from a list, based almost entirely on their relative costs.
In our view, to find the levels of cover that will work well for you in
an accident using just the information presented by a price comparison
site can be, at best, a challenge and very often, it's simply
impossible.
As a result, the automatic use of price comparison sites by most as
their first line approach to compare motor insurance needs to be
challenged. Inspection of the alternative - that is, going direct to a
well-established and leading motor insurer - is clearly merited.
If we look at the above issue of finding quality cover, this is, in
fact, a major strength of going direct. The leading motor insurers
offer excellent cover as standard. You can check this out for yourself
by using a good insurance listings site like this to compare
car
insurance policies from
these top
car insurance providers.
When you do so, it becomes quickly evident that the cover they offer is
the kind of thing people like to have in an accident. This didn't occur
by chance, of course. These companies carefully research what poeple
want. That you can so easily build in quality via direct use of these
companies is a powerful reason to go direct if the price is right.
The latter, of course, is the big problem for most. They believe -
incorrectly, as we'll discuss in a moment - that unless they compare
motor insurance that the price they will pay risks being too much,
perhaps even to the tune of hundreds of pounds too much.
This fear fails to recognise the effects of a competitive UK insurance
market on pricing. All the big companies match or beat rivals for
similar policies in terms of pricing. They have to. There really is no
need to get obssessed with checking them all yourself. It's much wiser
to to check one or two of the leading car insurance providers and
determine your choice mainly on the basis of cover, allowing market
effects to largely look after price. More..
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