Car insurance comparison sites

Janie2

Hi I'm need to renew my car insurance within the next 3 weeks so have been trawling through the comparison sites. Every single one puts various Hastings quotes in the top 5 and each comparison site's
quote is slightly different.  Do Hastings pay comparison sites to get their quotes at the top of people's searches ? I don't want to go with them as I've heard nothing but bad about them... I was just wondering! 

Arunmor

Does it really matter?  Just ignore the Hastings quotes if you don't like them.  There are plenty I won't insure with.

Also worth lookin at companies that don't use comparison sites.

Aylesbury_Duck

Possibly, or it's more likely that your particular profile happens to fit the customer profile Hastings are after at the moment.  The differences will probably be based on the slight variation in questions each comparison site asks and what assumptions they make about excess, breakdown cover, legal cover and so on.  The actual price would be finalised if you actually went to Hastings' site to complete the quote process, and I suspect it would be the same no matter which comparison site led you there.

You're unlikely to hear anything but bad things about any insurer.  People don't often come onto forums or chat in the pub about what a brilliant service they got from their insurance provider.

born_again

Janie2 said:

Hi I'm need to renew my car insurance within the next 3 weeks so have been trawling through the comparison sites. Every single one puts various Hastings quotes in the top 5 and each comparison site's
quote is slightly different.  Do Hastings pay comparison sites to get their quotes at the top of people's searches ? I don't want to go with them as I've heard nothing but bad about them... I was just wondering! 

Given quotes tend to be listed in order from cheapest to dearest.
Thats not going to happen.

DullGreyGuy

Janie2 said:

Hi I'm need to renew my car insurance within the next 3 weeks so have been trawling through the comparison sites. Every single one puts various Hastings quotes in the top 5 and each comparison site's
quote is slightly different.  Do Hastings pay comparison sites to get their quotes at the top of people's searches ? I don't want to go with them as I've heard nothing but bad about them... I was just wondering! 

Sellers of insurance pay a fee to the comparison site if the customer buys the insurance from them via the aggregator. Its a commercial contract so the exact fee paid will be different per seller depending on how long they signed up for, their size, how the fees change during the duration of the contract etc etc

Seller can buy marketing rights, assuming the user agrees, if they finish in the top X of sellers by paying a higher per sale fee. 

All sellers are told where they finished in the list as a rank but not what the other prices where, who quoted them nor who the user ended up buying from. 

In principle a seller could give the aggregator the right to waive part of their fee to get their price cheaper and so higher in the list but why would the aggregator do that when they can get the full fee from the one that is naturally cheaper unless that insurer is grossly being over charged by the aggregator?

It could be Hastings are simply working out the premium and then adding on the aggregators fee hence why they are cheapest on all but slightly different prices. It would be an unusual way to do things but not the worst; all insurers factor in the cost of acquisition but normally on a more averaged way. 

Ultimately its ordered by price so Hasting's can't be artificially at the top unless they are actually the cheapest.