Why do comparison sites rip us off! 28 February at 9:54PM in Insurance & life assurance 4 replies 280 views

Brassneck28

My wife’s car insurance is up for renewal, so I got quotes off of several comparison sites. She also got quotes from a comparison site. But strangely they were £100 cheaper than my quotes?

we worked it out that if you logged in as an existing customer, they up the price. But if you log on from a different machine masking your IP address, miraculously the quotes are much cheaper!!!

diystarter7

Brassneck28 said:

My wife’s car insurance is up for renewal, so I got quotes off of several comparison sites. She also got quotes from a comparison site. But strangely they were £100 cheaper than my quotes?

we worked it out that if you logged in as an existing customer, they up the price. But if you log on from a different machine masking your IP address, miraculously the quotes are much cheaper!!!

Hi OP

That is very interesting. TBH, I've never noted that but I have auto-delete activated for  my cookies when using sites like that

Thanks for sharing

huckster

Comparison sites are data harvesters used by financial services companies and they actively share data on a constant basis with Insurance companies plus credit reference agencies that they have contracts with. So even companies that don't quote, receive the data.

Insurance rates are not static, they change all of the time throughout a day. So what is being reported is difficult to prove as trying to charge existing customers higher premiums.

Be careful in using the comparison sites. Don't go in at different times to request multiple quotes or slightly change information. They have built in software that looks out for possible manipulation of the sites to obtain cheaper premiums.

Epilogue

This is interesting. I'm looking for car insurance after my renewal premium from Churchill was an absurd 168% higher than the fee last year when the only differences are both I and my car are a year older. I chose Budget (only 137% higher than last year's premium - I'm being seriously ripped-off again) via a comparison site but was unable to click through to Budget initially.  At the third attempt I did get to Budget to be faced with a message quoting my existing policy number - for home and contents. I called Budget and the story was the latest FCA recommendations prevent comparison sites from allowing potential customers to connect to insurers with whom they already have any policy, which sounds like rubbish to me. I assume this is a garbled implementation of the requirements for insurance companies to quote the same price to new and existing customers, and not what the regulations intended.

Funnily enough, the quote over the phone was higher than the quote via the comparison site. Why wasn't I surprised? 

dunstonh

I'm looking for car insurance after my renewal premium from Churchill was an absurd 168% higher than the fee last year when the only differences are both I and my car are a year older.

They are not the only differences.   They are the only differences from your point of view.  However, you haven't taken into account any differences in the insurer's data.   or the FCA requirements that there are no early year discounts which came into effect between last year and this years policy.   That is almost certainly the bulk of your difference.

 I called Budget and the story was the latest FCA recommendations prevent comparison sites from allowing potential customers to connect to insurers with whom they already have any policy, which sounds like rubbish to me. I assume this is a garbled implementation of the requirements for insurance companies to quote the same price to new and existing customers, and not what the regulations intended.

If you shopped around each year, the old system gave you lower prices each year than those that remained the old insurer (caveats apply).     With those early year discounts gone, your price was always going to be higher on the new system.   You are a loser under the new rules.   

Funnily enough, the quote over the phone was higher than the quote via the comparison site. Why wasn't I surprised? 

You shouldn't be surprised as its quite logical that it's higher.  Internet distribution is cheaper than call centre distribution.   Prices vary over distribution methods.