Comments on: Compare the market – but who’s market?

By: lobelia

lobelia — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 09:41:50 +0000

i have ‘stumbled’ across your websit just by chance and as you seem to know all about the tools these comparison websites use, you may be able to answer a question for me. keep the answer simple as you are dealing with a complete novice to everything computerised.
when i was looking for a car insurance quote i went on compare the market because i too hate to fill in details time and time again to get quotes. i did not take up the best quote it gave me but went to a company that according to compare the market were not willing to quote me. i went to the company direct and got a better quote from them than the company which had the cheapest quote on compare.
how is this possible?

By: Ernest

Ernest — Fri, 18 May 2007 17:15:17 +0000

@Creased

Neil has kindly agreed to do a Q&A with us. We’ll be examining their comparison model in that. There are good ways to profile without knowing the precise post code but to some extent, you’re right. Without specifics it can be difficult to make a detailed comparison.

Speed is the key for customers here …and maybe other websites looking to integrate a simple tool.

By: Creased

Creased — Fri, 18 May 2007 10:14:22 +0000

I’ve just had a look at http://www.insurewith.com, and i think it is a nice idea and much quicker solution, but how can you tell that X insurer is best for me without knowing my postcode?

By: Ernest

Ernest — Mon, 14 May 2007 18:23:11 +0000

@Neil

Glad you like the blog. Saying that you compare the entire market does leave you open to someone coming along with the name of the one insurer you dont compare – just to pee on your parade!!

I should also point out that, despite the fact that they dont tend to explain things very well, Insurancewide.com manage to compare the types of insurers you are talking about. Have you compared who you compare and who they compare? See who comes out on top.

By: Neil Hart

Neil Hart — Mon, 14 May 2007 16:13:43 +0000

You guys definately know what you are talking about, great blog. For this very reason of aggregators saying they are comparing the market but not actually doing it we have set up the only site that looks at all the major players in the UK (www.insurewith.com). We are the only whole of market solution out there at the moment. We use pricing data that the insurance companies use themselves to set pricing models. Using data like this we can monitor anyone we like and give a complete view of the market. Down side is as we are not lnked into the insurance companies directly you do have to fill out the quotes yourself. In a recent independent test we gave the cheapest price 60% of the time over all the other comparison sites sites (mainly because we are the only comparison site to include UKI companies such as direct line)

By: Ernest

Ernest — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:19:31 +0000

Well Boozle, you’ve opened a can of worms there haven’t you?!!! You’re right though. Aggregators are not everyone’s cup of tea. For customers, they can be great, or they can be very misleading (usually without them knowing). Likewise, the insurers can get some good volumes (that’s the language of the industry) and the cleverer ones can also get some quality to suit their book of business if they use the system properly, instead of trying to play it.

The majority of those against aggregators are probably those who feel they will drive the prices too low as it will become the sole competing factor. I can see their point but as their popularity grows, they can’t be ignored.

My two pennies worth…aggregators can be good for all sides BUT you’ve got to pick the right ones.

…there could be a whole post on this…I’ll stop now! However, we often get some of the GoCompare and MoneySupermarket guys on here. What do you guys think (if you happen to stumble across this post again)?

By: Boozle

Boozle — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 10:53:26 +0000

Do you think aggregators are the future? I certainly don’t enjoy filling out a form more than once..
Some ppl in the industry are against them, but who goes to their local butcher and baker, when you’ve got Tesco down the road?

By: Ernest

Ernest — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 19:02:48 +0000

If anyone from Compare The Market stumbles across this post, please do something about your MSN rankings. This page is top for the term ‘compare the market’ – that’s a bit embarrassing isn’t it?

By: Ernest

Ernest — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 13:07:36 +0000

Confused have since improved their integration with Orange – but only to the extent that they’ve done a slight creative overhaul of their site.

By: Ernest

Ernest — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 23:23:13 +0000

Interesting you picked up on bestdealinsurance. I noticed them a few days ago when I did a search for life insurance – a very lucrative keyword to be top for.

The first thing I noticed was the reliance on Endsleigh for product areas which aren’t served by their lead exchange system.

The quicker they rise, the quicker they fall! Have you done any digging or filled in a Google spam report yet? Why not? Shame on you!