Car insurance comparison sites different 2022?

LucasWAG

I normally do car insurance through comparison sites such as MSE, Confused, GoCompare etc and for at least 10+ years the way I have done it for myself and other family members who don't have access to the internet, is to "shop" within the first 30 days of our car insurances expiring. Because the price would fluctuate over the month I would at the very least "lock in" the cheapest quote and then take this to my current insurers who would beat the quote.

A family members insurance was expiring in February but due to all the concerns come 1st January I was told to "buy" the insurance in December. I didn't, because there was potential for a bit of scare-mongering going on and I felt assured that at least I would still be able to "lock in" the prices from December. I didn't think any more of it until this week when I went on to see about taking out the insurance since the time was now within the expiration.

I found the cheapest quote from around two weeks ago, clicked on it and the website instead did a refresh of the insurance quotes. The cheapest quote was lost and it ended up coming in at around £30.00 more expensive for "today". The same happened on another quote I clicked. It was then I realised the updated quotes offer was "TODAY ONLY" or "EXPIRES TODAY". That had never happened in all the years I have been doing online insurance quotes - Is this what January 1st has now brought to us, no more having the ability to "lock in" prices for at least 30 days?

That seems like such bad practice, I don't want to have to phone up my insurance company 10 times through the month telling them I could be getting a saving of £3.00 on the previous accepted quote. I did notice on the insurance list that there were some exceptions to "TODAY ONLY". Except they were £100.0 more expensive from the off so obviously not in my range of search.

Jenni_D

One of the things that changed on Jan 1st was that insurers can no longer offer new-customer-only deals - any deals they have must also be available for existing customers. What this means is that they'll be less generous in general with any deals being offered - good for the sheeple who don't bother looking around, but not for the money-savvy people. Maybe this (partially) explains what you've noticed?

diystarter7

Don't forget not all insurance co's are on comparison sites.

Grey_Critic

The previous quotes were done under the old system and no longer complied with the new rules. Will be interesting to see how the new rules work in practice. It is not always about price, people may have confidence in a particular insurer, it was crazy that you get get the same deal cheaper by going via the internet instead of the renewal.

Sandtree

Jenni_D said:

One of the things that changed on Jan 1st was that insurers can no longer offer new-customer-only deals - any deals they have must also be available for existing customers. What this means is that they'll be less generous in general with any deals being offered - good for the sheeple who don't bother looking around, but not for the money-savvy people. Maybe this (partially) explains what you've noticed?

They can but the incentive must be non-financial (or money like)... discounts and gift cards are out but cuddly toys are still ok.

Not managed to workout where the likes of Quidco will fit as traditionally it was marketing budget being given to an advertiser who happened to pass on most of it to the clicker whereas now it and its peers are less left field and doubt yet considered a distribution channel 

Grey_Critic said:

The previous quotes were done under the old system and no longer complied with the new rules. Will be interesting to see how the new rules work in practice. It is not always about price, people may have confidence in a particular insurer, it was crazy that you get get the same deal cheaper by going via the internet instead of the renewal.

Differential pricing by channel hasnt been outlawed so if you bought over the phone then your renewal must not be more expensive than the current phone pricing but the internet can be lower priced. Differential pricing can come with a slightly different product though too but its insurance we are talking about so we are only interested in price and not value. 

born_again

Jenni_D said:

One of the things that changed on Jan 1st was that insurers can no longer offer new-customer-only deals - any deals they have must also be available for existing customers. What this means is that they'll be less generous in general with any deals being offered - good for the sheeple who don't bother looking around, but not for the money-savvy people. Maybe this (partially) explains what you've noticed?

Could not get a cheaper deal than the offered renewal from Aviva on any of the comparison sites, even Aviva was cheaper than last year 👀 . As clearly comparison sites were using the bribe commision they received to reduce the price.

Rolandtheroadie

Stuck with my current insurer for renewal, due this Wednesday. It's 15% cheaper than last year, when I was a new customer.
 3 weeks ago I could have saved £6 going elsewhere.
 I did notice a lot of quotes were today only though. 

Grumpy_chap

Sandtree said:

Differential pricing by channel hasnt been outlawed so if you bought over the phone then your renewal must not be more expensive than the current phone pricing but the internet can be lower priced. 

That kind of makes sense as the vendor can argue that the online price is fully self service, telephone has a basic admin / checking service and broker offers a full-service enhanced level akin to concierge service...

Sandtree said:

Differential pricing can come with a slightly different product though too but its insurance we are talking about so we are only interested in price and not value. 

Even in insurance, value is more than just the lowest price.
I can see, here, though, is the trick and deception around renewal prices / differentiation making the product different.  So, renewal is offered the basic policy whereas comparison site offers the full bells & whistles policy with legal cover, breakdown cover etc all included but then some "extra" or another is only available to buy through the comparison site so the whole thing becomes a farce.  That would appear to still be legal, though I am not an expert.

Jenni_D

That's akin to the "price match" offers from some electronic goods sellers - looks good on the face of it, but the part number you buy from them has a specific code just for that seller so getting an actual price match is impossible; even though the exact same specification is available cheaper elsewhere, the seller has a slightly different SKU and so rejects the match.

Grumpy_chap

I wonder how different an insurance product has to be to qualify as changed?

We just purchased a sofa from DFS and had also seen the same sofa at M&S, albeit a couple of changes in the cushions.   M&S market this as "exclusive" whereas DFS were not making such a claim.  The DFS salesman said that there have to be 7 changes for the item in another shop to be assessed as a different product / model range.

Jenni_D

With things like TVs some of the well-known retailers will have the exact same items but they'll have slightly different model numbers (supplied only to that retailer) - it's not unknown for them to simply use that as a reason for rejecting a price match.