Comparing the Comparison Sites
We had an auto renewal letter through the other day for my wife’s car insurance – they wanted £ 228.96
I thought this was a bit steep so had a quick look this morning at a few comparison sites, namely Compare the Market, Confused & Money Supermarket.
I entered exactly the same details into each of the sites, just a couple of minutes apart & yet the results they brought back differed wildly. In some cases as much as 54% different!
Anyway – here’s the results & remember, these are all for exactly the same person with exactly the same circumstances & exactly the same car (you can click the column headings to sort by that column).
| Confused | Compare the market | Money Supermarket | Highest | Lowest | Diff | Diff % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | £ 119.36 | £ 126.08 | £ 121.77 | £ 126.08 | £ 119.36 | £ 6.72 | 6% | ||
 | £ 122.97 | £ 127.34 | £ 124.18 | £ 127.34 | £ 122.97 | £ 4.37 | 4% | ||
 | £ 123.65 | £ 131.76 | £ 126.13 | £ 131.76 | £ 123.65 | £ 8.11 | 7% | ||
 | £ 125.88 | £ 131.83 | £ 122.97 | £ 131.83 | £ 122.97 | £ 8.86 | 7% | ||
 | £ 125.91 | £ 131.59 | £ 124.18 | £ 131.59 | £ 124.18 | £ 7.41 | 6% | ||
 | £ 126.59 | £ 135.03 | £ 129.12 | £ 135.03 | £ 126.59 | £ 8.44 | 7% | ||
 | £ 130.39 | £ 136.35 | £ 126.59 | £ 136.35 | £ 126.59 | £ 9.74 | 8% | ||
 | £ 134.23 | £ 172.51 | £ 207.16 | £ 207.16 | £ 134.23 | £ 72.93 | 54% | ||
 | £ 143.18 | £ 164.76 | £ 207.16 | £ 207.16 | £ 143.18 | £ 63.98 | 45% | ||
 | £ 147.39 | £ 999 (no quote) | £ 147.41 | £ 147.41 | £ 147.39 | £ 0.02 | 0% | ||
 | £ 152.91 | £ 157.37 | £ 152.91 | £ 157.37 | £ 152.91 | £ 4.46 | 3% | ||
 | £ 160.03 | £ 999 (no quote) | £ 160.03 | £ 160.03 | £ 160.03 | £ 0.00 | 0% | ||
 | £ 167.79 | £ 131.78 | £ 999 (no quote) | £ 167.79 | £ 131.78 | £ 36.01 | 27% |
So – the morals of the story are these :-
- Obviously you should always shop around
- Obviously NEVER accept your renewal quote
- Not quite so obvious before now : If you’re going to use a comparison service (I think you should) – then check a few different ones
Happy Comparing !!
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on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 12:45 and is filed under Random.
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August 4th, 2009 at 17:37
I think it’s because the comparison sites make various assumptions when providing a quote as when you go through to the insurance company you will get a different result to that of the comparison site.
I believe it’s to do with speeding up the comparison process and reduce the amount of information that is required to be input.