Should it be Yes or No to
selecting low cost car
insurance in the UK?
Whether
it's car insurance or anything else, no-one wants to pay more than is
necessary. There are many that take the view that as it's a legal
requirement to have car insurance they'll buy it at as cheap a price as
they can find and what they are getting is of no consequence to them,
at least at the point of purchase.
The above people, and they are numerous, will find a price comparison
site the perfect resource as it does well what they want - that is, to
find a very low cost car insurance policy. What price comparison sites
do less well - that is, help you to work out exactly what you're
getting in terms of policy features - doesn't matter to these people as
they are only influenced by price.
What about those that do want to consider what they are getting but
still want to go cheap - should they use a price comparison site or
not? Well, this depends on how much emphasis they wish to put on price,
versus how much they want included in their cover. The more you want,
the less useful price comparison sites are at helping you to find it
without doing a lot of your own homework on the side. The latter
point refers to the need to scrutinise policy details as presented by
individual insurers on their own websites as it's hard to make a full
comparison using summarised data alone as presented by price
comparison sites.
Clearly, the more you want, the more cumbersome it becomes to research
numerous policies until you find what you want and conseqently the less
useful a price comparison site is for this prupose.
The above consideration is why, for many more than those that opt to
pursue this route, going direct to a top car insurance brand is a
better course to satisfactory cover. As this may seem a surprising or
faulty assertion to many, let's clarify why the direct route is a much
better choice than many realise.
The argument starts with the explosion of a myth - that unless you
compare lots of car insurance quotes, you will pay too much for your
cover. If you want to see first hand lots of prices, the only way to do
this is to throw lots of unlike policies into the mix - as price
comparison sites do - and then look at the generated list of prices and
try to make some sense of it.
A better approach is to stand back and consider the nature of the UK
car insurance market. Why are there so many TV adverts for car
insurance, do you think? It's because car insurance is exceptionally
competitive and providers have to do all that they can to promote their
brand. Included in that activity is the need to provide competitive
pricing for similar policies to those of rival companies in order to
maintain or improve market share. And the effect? Narrowing of the
range of prices for like policies to the point where there is no great
need to dwell on the price as the market has taken care of it
automatically.
The only important aspect of this for the consumer is the need to buy
from the big brands as their market dominance has a close relationship
to competitive pricing. Even where a top brand is not the
cheapest for like cover, they will generally offer you a refund of the
difference if you find the same cover cheaper elsewhere.
For the above, it should be clear that checking lots of prices yourself
is not as important as most think. Given that quality control is easier
when you go to top brands, it does call into question why price
comparison sites have become so popular. Certainly, except where you
are expecting very expensive cover (as with the young driver) we
suggest keeping price comparison systems as a second line approach to
going direct to a top, tried and tested brand.
To reseach these brands and compare
car
insurance easily,
you could start with this popular resource. More..
|