Moments before the press release went out, I called it that Tesco Compare would be top of DeFaqto’s latest ‘rating’ report of comparison websites. Not difficult when you see who’s paying their wages

In all fairness to Tesco, they could well be the best ones out there for the comparison product they deliver. But quite honestly, isn’t it a bit embarrassing to be using static data when you can collect it all dynamically with a little bit of work these days?!

Insurancewide.com did used to sell policies under its own name but ceased doing so in 2004.

I seem to remember informing Defaqto of this fact myself a couple of years ago. Anyway thankyou to Ernest and George for picking this up and thank you Kate for removing us from your database!

Regards,
James Harrison
CEO, Insurancewide.com

Where do you hail from “TheSEOVirgin”?

http://www.beatthatquote.com/fun/

It has been pretty well publicised that they are about to spend an awful lot of money on ATL marketing. Presumably this will be on media then…? ;o)

Insurancewide are a COMPARISON service. You wouldn’t go through Confused.com and claim that all of the policies in their results are sold by them and underwritten by Admiral …or would you?!

So why do your guys think this is (or has been) the case for Insurancewide?

They’ve never sold a car insurance policy of their own …trust me, we spend enough time talking to and monitoring all of the comparison and broker websites to know when they change a comment tag in their mark up, let alone something as obvious as that! Perhaps someone from Insurancewide can comment on this to confirm?

I’m afraid you’ve just made the validity of your data and “professional” research team even worse. Shame.

Thank you for spending the time to research, and write about, Defaqto’s Compare! tool. I’m delighted that you appreciate the value it’s adding in raising awareness of policy differences in a very price-focused market.

With respect to the inclusion of Insurancewide.com as a policy provider: until a few weeks ago they had a product on their site called “insurancewide.com motor insurance”. This was a white-labelled motor policy arranged by Equity Insurance Brokers (who part own Insurancewide) and underwritten by various underwriters at Lloyd’s of London. This policy has since been removed from their site, and our records updated (as you suggest, it would have been quite bizarre for us to have simply made it up, as they’re not even a direct seller).

White-labelling policies under different brand names is a regular occurrence, and typically we show the brand name that the customer would engage with, rather than the name of the ultimate underwriter.

Defaqto fully recognise the critical importance of timely and accurate data to our, and our customers’, businesses, and we value the efforts our much-loved, professional research team put in to making this happen. If you’d like to come and visit us to see what we get up to in more detail, then please do get in touch.

Kind regards

Kate Marsden
Marketing Director, Defaqto Group
kmarsden@defaqto.com