Car Insurance Comparison Website Problem

dwsjarcmcd

oysterpearl wrote: »

Thanks for your replies.

One of the quotes she did last night was far cheaper than the others from Admiral and was through ComparetheMarket.

She still has the e-mail, but if she tries to click Buy Now on it, it refreshes the quotes and it goes back to the stupidly high ones and not Admiral nor the cheaper prices. Is there any way to access an old quote through this website as we can't find the option anywhere?

Phone Admiral and quote the Compare The Market quote reference which will be on the e-mail. See if they will honour the price and you will get a meerkat!

huckster

Quentin wrote: »

To avoid this happening, use "virtual", anonymous details whilst you are playing around to find out the cheapest quotes.

I believe they have already considered that and they check the IP address used by the person obtaining the quotes.

Quentin

huckster wrote: »

I believe they have already considered that and they check the IP address used by the person obtaining the quotes.

They may do, but this isn't foolproof (eg users at libraries, IPA "hiding" techniques etc), and at least if you have been anonymous whilst "playing" you can start afresh when you are ready to input 8your real details.

System

huckster wrote: »

I believe they have already considered that and they check the IP address used by the person obtaining the quotes.

Where did you get that belief from ?

It would be almost pointless since the vast majority of people using the internet have temporary IP addresses assigned by their ISP.

And, it could cause issues because the IP address you have been assigned today, will be assigned to someone else in the near future, so the comparison sites cannot simply make a permanent link between you and an IP address, would not be viable

P.S.
Not wanting to go too far off topic..... If you want to find out how most ISPs allocate an IP address, then go to the "Techie stuff" MSE forum and ask the question there.
To answer your post #16 - I know my ISP uses dynamic IP addresses and a new address is assigned to my router each time I reboot it (or Power on) it is the router's IP address that the internet sees as your address. Assumes ADSL link via a router (standard broadband)
So, if you leave your router powered on all the time, it will retain the same IP address for a long period (Energy waste)

huckster

Ok well check your IP address at home over the next week or so and tell me how often it changes.

Quentin

huckster wrote: »

Ok well check your IP address at home over the next week or so and tell me how often it changes.

Although in danger of going off at a tangent - if you have a fixed IPA, then obviously it won't change.

But most ISPs don't allocate you a fixed one - it's allocated whenever you switch on.

eg: This is from Madasafish ISP's website regarding IPAs:

Unless you request otherwise, we will randomly assign your computer an IP address each time you connect. This is called a dynamic IP address and for the vast majority of customers, this is the best way of being assigned an IP address.

Gloomendoom

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Yes, though any saved quotes she has will still be honoured.

Insurers review their prices regularly and now with the aggregators they can compare not only their price and conversion rate but also where in the list they rank (though not what the other insurers quoted).

Typically insurers want to have a diverse pool of people on their books to mitigate against things getting too polarised (if you think of Home insurance a company doesnt want to have 20% of its book in 1 county as if that county has a major flood or freeze incident their claims are massive where as if an insurer has an even spread then yes they get some claims from that area but thats balanced by the fact a different county ends up have a very mild winter)

Admiral Group seem particularly prone to withdrawing from quoting if people are playing a lot on the aggregators -v- other insurers.

This makes sense in my wife's case. She was trying to work out how much various optional extras on a new car were likely to bump up her insurance premium.

I think she got three reasonable quotes before the premium went through the roof. Silly really because they lost the business.

The trick seems to be to save the original quote and get a new quote for every new option. Don't edit the original quote because you will lose the price they first quoted.