Compare the Market Information Sharing

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

I suppose I should have guessed but was slightly perturbed by the experience when ringing Admiral.

My renewal quote was excessively high (we are talking about it having doubled over a couple of years when we have young drivers getting older and so on).

Went on to CompareTheMarket and did a couple of trial quotes for each car individually and then rang Admiral and talked to a very able young Canadian guy. He got the Admiral quote down from £2000 to about £1500, as compared with about £900 through individual quotes. The only difference was some breakdown cover & legal extras, around £100 to be added.

The guy spent a few seconds using their computer system to find my online quotes and then had an application that could go through my online information and compare it with their quotation system.

I was slightly surprised that the information I gave to ComparetheMarket was so readily available and used and integrated into their internal systems.

I guess there are two take aways from this - nothing online is private, and if you are inclined to be economical with the truth when talking about online quotes you received, they can check very quickly!

bod1467

Bear in mind that CTM, GC, etc. all use an online portal into the insurers' databases, so the information for the quotes is already there.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

bod1467 wrote: »

Bear in mind that CTM, GC, etc. all use an online portal into the insurers' databases, so the information for the quotes is already there.

Yep, obviously our information has to go into the insurer to produce the quote, but it was the realisation that they were actively using this interactively which surprised me, not going into some black hole computer system and back out again.

marlot

In this case, the insurer seems to have used the information to void someone's insurance.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5306352

FreddieFrugal

That's why I never use my real phone number when doing quotes on comparison websites, I have an old mobile number then I change it when I go through to buying from my chosen company. Otherwise you will get some of the other companies that gave you quotes phoning you incessantly.

AdrianC

IanMSpencer wrote: »

Yep, obviously our information has to go into the insurer to produce the quote, but it was the realisation that they were actively using this interactively which surprised me, not going into some black hole computer system and back out again.

So your objection isn't to the comparison engine sharing the information, but to what the insurer does with it.

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

AdrianC wrote: »

So your objection isn't to the comparison engine sharing the information, but to what the insurer does with it.

Not really an objection, and quietly I was quite impressed. Mainly a little surprised that they had put together systems to go trawling through the data for the retentions department.

However, I just assumed it went in the bit-bucket at the data centre, perhaps into the data analysis for the actuary to make use of. The live, interactive bit was a surprise.

rudekid48

IanMSpencer wrote: »

Not really an objection, and quietly I was quite impressed. Mainly a little surprised that they had put together systems to go trawling through the data for the retentions department.

However, I just assumed it went in the bit-bucket at the data centre, perhaps into the data analysis for the actuary to make use of. The live, interactive bit was a surprise.

How else would they set up a policy for you if you called after being on the comparison site?

dacouch

rudekid48 wrote: »

How else would they set up a policy for you if you called after being on the comparison site?

and if you ignore the fact some Insurers change their rates a few times a day which would cause a logistical nightmare.

In addition Insurers are not going to release their rates and data to a third party such as a comparison site. The comparison site accumulates the data and then sends it over to each Insurer for a rate to be calculated and reported back.

Data and making the most of it is how Insurers make money, the companies who make the best use of all of the data coming into them are the ones who make the money

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

rudekid48 wrote: »

How else would they set up a policy for you if you called after being on the comparison site?

By pressing the button that says Buy and then that is the bit that should forward your details, and gets the source website their commission as opposed to a few different options trying out variations of voluntary excess and so on.

rudekid48

IanMSpencer wrote: »

By pressing the button that says Buy and then that is the bit that should forward your details, and gets the source website their commission as opposed to a few different options trying out variations of voluntary excess and so on.

Ok, I think I see where you're coming from now. So you think that the insurer should only get your information when you press BUY on compare the market?

the problem is though, that to be able to give you a price so that you can press buy, the insurer has to get your details first. whenever you get a quote on a comparison site, there will probably be over 100 insurers & brokers that have your details on their systems.