Insurance Comparison: Defaqto or Defalseto?

Defaqto are a relatively successful company who seem to fit the company model of “monkeys on typewriters”. I mean that in a nice way because that’s exactly what they’re saving their clients from! Defaqto clients pretty much use them to outsource all of the hassle, cost, management and ball ache which comes with data collation and research. To this end, they have become a significant contributor in areas of personal insurance as well as wider markets. They simply employ a lot of people, to cover a lot of ground and dig up the minute details in particular areas.

Filling this sort of role, you’d expect that they’d live and die by the information they provide their clients and their customers. Wouldn’t you?!

Over the last few weeks, you may have noticed the press releases about Defaqto’s new insurance comparison tool. Having seen Defaqto solve a few personal finance riddles through data collation, I was a little more than excited. I wasn’t expecting an all-singing-all-dancing screenscraping comparison solution by any means. But I was hoping to see them fill that crucial gap between the established comparison sites/screenscrapers and the insurance providers – where the important information on policy content is stored. Where transparency is sort for all of five seconds before the customer gives up and buys the cheapest (probably least suitable) policy of the two and a half forms they’ve filled out online.

So, off I sauntered to the Find website (yes, they’re still around – although not so much in Google nowadays!) where they have implemented the Defaqto insurance comparison tool already. Once I’d turned Javascript on (!), I saw a very simple interface which seemed to match the contents of policies offered by UK insurance providers against each other. Easy to understand and basic functionality.

Make or break!

However, it is the crucial validity of their data which makes or breaks a tool like this. One simple error and your faith in all the rest is lost. Hundreds of thousands of man hours and enough money to make Richard Branson blush, all flushed down the loo in an instant.

I started checking the subtle differences between the Budget brands, the Admiral brands, the RBS brands and so on (I know, I need to get out more). Impressed by the seemingly endless list of insurance providers, I started scanning for any missing names …Highway, Honda, HSBC, IBuyEco, Insurancewide, Insure… Hold on a minute! Insurancewide.com?!

OK, so Insurancewide may not be the brand name which rolls of every insurance customer’s tongue but an insurance company? I think not? How has Defaqto managed to put them forward as an insurance company? Worse still, they’ve even managed to supply policy details! Where did they pull them from? They don’t even sell policies. They compare them. It’s probably fair to say that Insurancewide don’t really explain what they do and how they do it very well (perhaps intentional, perhaps not), but to put them down as an insurance provider …and to them put forward their policy details? They’ve even got “insurer comparison service” in the first line of the first paragraph on their homepage for God’s sake!!

Break!

How useful is Defaqto insurance comparison?

The tool may provide some useful data in a quicker format than reading the policy documents of each and every insurance brand in their list. But it’s a dangerous tool to put out there considering it’s based on static data gathered by low paid researchers who churn through policy documents day-in, day-out. When accuracy the sword you swear to defend, don’t go waving it dangerously between your legs like that!!

What if a customer uses the tool instead of reading the policy documents for themselves? Do you think they’re all aware that the insurers can offer different policies from one day to the next, faster than Defaqto can update their static databases? That the insurers may offer you a different policy depending on your profile and what they’re willing to offer you because of the risk presented? That the same insurer, brand name or underwriter may offer you a different policy depending on which broker or intermediary you’ve accessed them through? Or that some insurers manage to offer stripped down policies through insurance comparison sites to make the prices look more attractive?

I don’t blame Defaqto for having a stab at this. The policy content is probably the most important element missing from the insurance comparison tools currently on the market – something which GoCompare have attempted to remedy to some extent. But seeing one mistake like this from Defaqto and the rest just shatters and falls into a million little pieces.

Defaqto’s small print

The irony of all this is that this tool should save the customer from having to read the small print. But it is Defaqto (or Find) who have included a sort of small print/disclaimer to cover themselves for the timeliness or their updates, that the policy comparisons match typical levels of cover and that they may have been sourced through intermediaries or brokers. Basically, saying this information may be utterly worthless to you but you won’t read this anyway so it doesn’t really matter.