Supermarket insurance & underwriters - what's the deal?

Sooler

From various messages on here it appears that although supermarket insurance products are underwritten by the big name insurance companies, they give the worst service ever when you need to deal with them.

Is this because the supermarkets make more money by not paying out or giving poor valuations for writeoff?

What's the role of the underwriter, a lot of people assume that you are buying the same product that you would get by buying directly from the underwriter, and therefor expect the same level of service, is this right?

Are supermarkets just resellers, how do they make their money, do they just get commission from selling policies or do they make more money by not paying out?

Are they totally independent from the underwriter whose role is just to provide a huge pot of money that the supermarket insurance products have access to?

Are the supermarket call centres the same ones as the underwriters or do they have their own?


May be Martin could write an article explaining.