Compare the Market and the illusion of choice

tobiascurious

I did a quote through comparethemarket and the eleven cheapest quotes were through:

Yes
HSBC
M&S
Ibuyeco
Budget
Post Office
M&S
Dial Direct
Bradford and Bingley
Auto Trader
Highway

These all look like different companies but in each case* the insurance is provided by BISL (Budget Insurance Services Limited), underwritten by Highway.

*except Highway direct

What's more, BISL owns Comparethemarket.

So anyone using Comparethemarket gets an illusion of choice but in reality they're using a BISL comparison site and will end up buying insurance provided by BISL.

I think the Admiral group does something similar with confused.com and will usually fix it so that Admiral/Bell insurance appears cheapest.

tobiascurious

If anyone knows of any significant differences between those 10 companies I mentioned, please say!

dacouch

Have you tried https://www.comparethemeerkat.co.uk

These comparison sites are big time money making operations so you are bound to find these types of conflicts of interest.

I believe tesocs reckon they have the largest panel of Insurers.

By the way my personal opinion of Highway is not great

dacouch

With regard to you question on the difference between the 10, these companies are brands not insurers so they pick an insurer to underwrite their policies. They rely on customers liking the shops brand and assuming the insurance customer service is the same as the shop

Buddug_2

I don't think much of Budget - can't say about the others though. Will certainly be very careful which comparison sites I use in future based on what's been posted here.

Quentin

See MSE Martin's article (click on car insurance in the resource bar at the top of this page) to see recommended comparison sites.

Wutang_2

Quentin wrote: »

See MSE Martin's article (click on car insurance in the resource bar at the top of this page) to see recommended comparison sites.

Why is this??......he actually recommends moneysupermarket and they are useless

Quentin

If you read the article you will see the recommendation is to use a number of sites to get the full picture. (Including moneysupermarket).

There is a thread devoted to discussing the article (which would be the best place to point out that he is recommending a "useless" site - and giving the reasons why):

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=603514

tobiascurious

My issue isn't with Martin's guide, it's more that people going to the comparethemarket site after seeing one of the (amusing) meerkat adverts aren't really comparing the market at all, they're just comparing different BISL brandings all at a very similar cost!

A customer would then be wasting his/her time to compare those different brandings if they're all the same: BISL underwritten by Highway

tobiascurious

dacouch wrote: »

With regard to you question on the difference between the 10, these companies are brands not insurers so they pick an insurer to underwrite their policies. They rely on customers liking the shops brand and assuming the insurance customer service is the same as the shop

So while we're on the subject, how many real insurers (as opposed to brokers/intermediaries) actually exist?

Highway
Groupama
Direct Line
Norwich Union
Admiral/Bell
Fortis?
NFU Mutual

tobiascurious

dacouch wrote: »

By the way my personal opinion of Highway is not great

care to expand?