insuresupermarket/moneysupermarket- scandal

tali

why does insuresupermarket/moneysupermarket give car insurance quotes which are "estimates" - but there is nothing in the website clarifying this at all???
When i phone i the insurer they always state "we always get this problem with insuresupermarket and they have nothing to do with us , blah , blah blah":rolleyes: and then i have to go thru the whole tiresome process over the phone and get a quote of £60 more:mad: than insuresupermarkets fake quote - well the problem is caused to frustrated consumers like me who are being treated like idiots by insuresupermarket and the insurance companies :wall
obviuosly the insurance companies must be in agreement with insuresupermarket to provide quotes so the claim of "and they have nothing to do with us" is bull - but then thats typical of the car insurance industry this is just another in a line of outrages and scandals they inflict on consumers on a daily basis:wall: :wall:
i feel so strongly that i am going to report insuresupermarket to the OFT - anyone else suffered this?

impy78

The problem with insure supermarket is that it doesn't ask in depth enough questions to actually fulfil the insurer's criteria, meaning that you have to go through the process again unless you take out the policy online.


It is a royal pain from both ends. When I worked in insurance, I was a little mystified as to why us the insurer and insure supermarket didn't do anything to improve things.

peterg1965

I suspect Insuresupermarket gets a referall fee from the insurance company when individuals click on the insurer from the website quote. It may be a fee that is given even if the insurance isn't taken. If that is the case it would be enough for Insuresupermarket to offer the quotation service despite most people not taking out the product.
I have to say that I prefer confused.com because when you go to the insurers site all your details are already on their website transfered from confused.com. I actually get the quotes via this way, find out the most competitive quote and then go through quidco to get the cashback!

movilogo

These sites just offer you an overall idea where you should get final quotes from. Out of 50 insureres, you'll probably select 5 and then haggle with them over phone.

For that purpose, they do their jobs pretty well.

Of course, since they don't ask in depth questions, actual quote always differs though slightly. I happened with me also. Confused.com suggested Admiral cheapest for me. Indeed, Admiral came out cheapest for me though my final price was bit higher than confused's quote.

ArchieB_2

Many are screen scrapers, this means they simply (quickly) run a quote on each website, using the basic details you enter. Some insurers try to prevent this, others let it happen, others may well have a relationship with the screen scraper.

Some insurers are dead against the screen scrapers as it destroys the direct business model.

The answer is, if you don't like inaccurate quotes then don't use them.

Always bear in mind that these sites are guiding you to the cheapest quotes - this doesn't mean the policy is suitable though!

Astaroth

There is a whole host of new aggregators just released or just about to be if the industry rumours are to be believed - some are certainly true.

As others have said, all aggregators will most likely make assumptions otherwise they have to ask every single question that everyone on their panel asks, so if an insurer decided to use car colour and favourite radio station as a rating criteria they would either have to ask everyone this question who is asking for a car quote or make an assumption. Take that and times by 50 insurers and you get a hell of a lot of questions.

The other issue of cause is multi choice questions... again not all insurers offer the same options and therefore the aggregator must make an assumption as to what to do. Take a very easy example of desired excess, if you ask for an excess of £120 but an insurer only offers £100 or £150 then they are going to have to move it one way or another.

Also, the majority of aggregators are not screen scrappers any more but use XML web services - screen scraping was the quick and dirty way to do things.

I am personally not overly impressed with these companies as they all have clear holes in the insurers covered, for a start none of the RBS brand appear legitimately on any of them (eg Direct Line, Churchill, Tesco, Privilege, Prudential to name a tiny proportion), and they have the stated inaccuracies.

ArchieB_2

It seems that gocompare do offer some kind guide as to how suitable the product is - not sure how 'unique' the Star Rating system is though.

Also it could be construed as advice and thus fall foul of FSA regulations.

My point so far as screenscrapers was that these companies don't usually have relationships with the insurers, whether it's technically screen scraping or XML technology is of no consequence to this relationship.

Astaroth

They do have a contractual relationship... plus some (like Confused) are actually owned by an insurer too

Plus, as to your other point....

We are an authorised representative of Europa Group Ltd who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, registration number 457130

Havent looked at the authorisation to see what they are entitled to do and not but it may be that they are legal operating within their FSA authorisation

richard.mason

Hello. I am the Managing Director of Moneysupermarket.com insurance channels. We handle 26,000 quotes a day and have an excellent relationship with millions of drivers who come back to the site year on year for information.

We shorten the question set and make some assumptions to do so. These are clearly detailed during the process and are designed to reduce the pages that a user has to go through to get a quote. Our intention is to be around 95%+ as accurate as the insurer would quote.

The idea is that you save a huge amount of time by using us to search initially from 50+ insurers rather than going through the process time and time again with each insurer.

You pay nothing for this service and in many cases, the insurer can provide a cheaper quote through us than you could get direct.

That said we are always open to suggestions to improve what we do and if a user wishes to email me direct, visit the contact us section and please do so!

richard.mason

Hello. I am the Managing Director of Moneysupermarket.com insurance channels. We handle 26,000 quotes a day and have an excellent relationship with millions of drivers who come back to the site year on year for information.

We shorten the question set and make some assumptions to do so. These are clearly detailed during the process and are designed to reduce the pages that a user has to go through to get a quote. Our intention is to be around 95%+ as accurate as the insurer would quote.

The idea is that you save a huge amount of time by using us to search initially from 50+ insurers rather than going through the process time and time again with each insurer.

You pay nothing for this service and in many cases, the insurer can provide a cheaper quote through us than you could get direct.

That said we are always open to suggestions to improve what we do and if a user wishes to email me direct, visit the contact us section and please do so!

Faye1

hi there

Check out their terms & conditions: http://www.moneysupermarket.com/legal/terms.asp?Source=MS

:A