Consumer website Moneyvista – www.moneyvista.com – provided food for thought in a recent article about using price comparison websites. Of course we have all experienced these and we know how cheap they can be but cheap is a bad word. How often do we use the word ‘cheap’ to describe something of substandard quality – the right answer is often. So why should it be any different with insurance products. Here are some pitfalls you might want to think about before using a price comparison website –

1. Excessive Excess?
You will often be asked to choose your excess – be careful as this is often a voluntary excess which will be added to the standard excess of whichever insurer you eventually choose. It is not unknown for people to end up with an excess close to £1000. Similarly you might put into the system that you would like an excess of £250 but the insurers that come up on the final list may have a minimum excess which is higher – check the small print.

2. Who are you paying?
Imagine going into the supermarket and everything in there is in a plain box with just a word describing what it is. You wouldn’t be able to buy your favorite brand or the fruit that looked the best. Would you buy the box that was the cheapest then? Of course not because we associate cheap with bad. With insurers you often don’t know how good they are until you have a claim or need to make an amendment so why trust an unknown? I am not saying that some of the smaller companies are not good, I am simply saying that you should do some research.

3. Compare the Compared!
If you are going to use a comparison website please remember that if an insurer doesn’t come up it does not mean that they are not competitive, it means that the insurer in question will not trade through these sites. The comparison websites will have negotiated rates and licenses to sell certain insurers products but these rates are not necessarily reflective of the rates you might get from the insurer directly so if you use a comparison website why not then go direct to the insurer and see what rate you get then. You will almost certainly receive favorable terms.

So please remember that cheap does not equal better. There is a BIG difference between a cheap insurer and a competitive insurer. If in doubt, give us a call and we will be happy to provide advice and even a quotation – even in the modern internet age a Broker is still in a position to provide you with quality products and services at competitive prices.