Broker vs online comparison sites??

dunstonh

i'm a bit confused by what you mean in terms of factory gate pricing?

These are products where the charges for retailing are not set by the provider. The "retailer" or adviser sets their charge and builds it into the product.

Conventional products do it the other way round. The provider sets the commission and the adviser/retailer decides how much they want to discount.

I'm also still struggling to find companies that can do a cheaper pension

You will do. You find most of the direct companies are not that cheap and the IFAs with an online execution only service, like Cavendish, only retail conventional products that way. At this time, you would need to see an IFA to get the cheapest product.

Will i be able to find this example somewhere - might help me get my head round this? Thanks again!

Its a search job i'm afraid. However, I need to get a quote for someone on pensions later so I will knock up a new one and post it later.

instaunt

Surely when you asked the question you knew you would get three different types of answers? Brokers will defend, comparison sites will criticise and general users will give their own personal experiences of the broker they visited and what they then did that either went better or worse.

There are good brokers out there and there are bad ones. Like dunstonh said, sometimes the commission for home insurance isn't that great anyway for them to really chase it hard! Sounds like your broker does have something to chase.

The ABI have come out saying that people should use brokers, but they have a vested interest in saying that ... and the FSA, although originally critical of comparison sites, have come out saying how much better they are these days.

If you found the same product at a cheaper price by going direct then grab it. Chances are that if you really shop around you could even get better cover for the same price. The chance that the broker you went to can get you the best possible deal is quite minimal.