Car Insurance Comparison websites or aggregators as they are often called promote themselves as being able to give you the perfect offer with the least amount of hassle.
You input the information once, and they match various insurers' policies for you at the click of a button – potentially saving you pounds and a lot of legwork in the end.
Yeah, that's what they promise; but are one-click review platforms actually as effective as they want to point out when it comes to cutting your auto insurance costs?
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To whom are your details given?
You should give more attention to how and where the data are forwarded around after you get a quote before you use a car insurance review site. Note they will have all your contact details: name, address, and email, maybe even a telephone number and your insurance renewal dates.
Your data will at the very least be passed on to all the companies they assess while gathering quotations. This would usually result in at least a call from the insurer responding with the cheapest price (providing the comparison platform has a contract with them, otherwise one of the firms in whom they have a commercial arrangement may contact you instead).
The AA Insurance professional revealed that car insurance comparison websites appear to fall into three groups about the data that are forwarded to other third parties:
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Those who standardly pledge to never pass the information on to third parties.
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Those that give you the option of refraining from forwarding your information on to third parties.
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Those who sends the information to third parties, voluntarily.
What a comparison platform is going to do with your personal data should always be mentioned in its terms and conditions. If it is especially important for you to protect your privacy and you do not want your data to be forwarded on to third parties, then this is what you can look for in the review tab for car insurance pages.
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Is the quotation too good to be true?
Car Insurance Comparison systems use a paragliding technique to gather several quotes at once. That means they also make decisions about the personal data and policy requirements.
While it sounds innocent enough, making conclusions about your driving background, personal conditions or insurance conditions could have a dramatic knock-on impact on your premiums or the amount of insurance you end up receiving.
That may also mean that when the insurer knows the true data, the extremely cheap quote you receive from them turns out to be fake and the cost rockets up.
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How exactly do they compare?
Car insurance review sites can appear to compare loads of policies but do they really compare enough insurers to find the best price for you?
For example, while some websites whine about sharing quotes from over 100 firms, they aren't really explicit on exactly who.
This means that you position your trust in them to compare offers from all the suppliers around and get you the best price, but this might actually not be the case.
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Who are they saving?
It is still worth testing whether a website releases figures such as an average save per customer as certain comparison platforms seem to be very discreet about disclosing this sort of detail.
That being said, while an estimated average saving at least implies they slash certain people ‘s cost of auto insurance, you need to continue to take it with a grain of rice. This is particularly the case if they don't tell you how they came up with the number and how many people they included in their estimates.
Of course, it's still important to remember that just because it's an average saving, you can't say it's going to help you save a comparable amount – or something at all!
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Will you pay less if you were going direct?
This ruthless approach to auto insurance where all is about costs, for you as a customer, also falls foul of another problem.
Insurance firms who market their plans by discount platforms believe that clients are less likely to be faithful and will eventually move on to the cheapest scheme as renewal time comes around again.
Because of this, some insurance companies simply provide less affordable rates by comparison platforms, and instead compensate clients who go individually with additional discounts.
Given the pitfalls, comparison platforms for auto insurance can be an important method in the quest of having the best car insurance at the right price – you just have to be smart about how you do it.
Because not all comparison sites compare the same insurance companies or plans, a good start is to use this comparison table of auto insurance sites to figure out which insurers provide the best coverage.
Car Insurance Comparison websites are skilled in making a decision enticing about which policy to purchase in an equally hasty manner. However, purchasing any financial commodity should always be done with caution and thought. Hence, try not to rush to make a decision.