Finding the right car
insurance company for your own cover
This
depends on what you consider 'right' for you, of course. Some see price
as all that matters and therefore they like to buy as cheap as they can
via a price comparison site. Others are looking for a bit more from
their cover. They'd rather buy from a reputable and well-known car
insurance company that is likely to serve them well in an accident.
They see going down the suprememly budget route as a mistake given that
such polcies generally have a high excess and miss out the kinds of
features people like to have in their cover. These may include courtesy
car arrangements or a protected no claims discount.
Ultimately this is a subjective choice. People vary in their
willingness or otherwise to accept the risks associated
with buying very low cost cover. Whatever your
position, it's hard to argue that buying cover from a car insurance
company without even considering the level of cover, the size of the
excess, or the customer services provided is a safe or sensible way to
proceed.
The more that people use price comparison sites, the more that low cost
policies are made available by each and every car insurance company to
compete in this arena and the more that caveat emptor - buyer beware -
applies.
So, if you really do need to check over policy features, not just the
relative pricing, how well do price comparison sites perform in helping
you to assess policies in this way? Well, this varies, of course, but
even with the more informative resources, quite often a look at
the insurer's own website cannot be avoided if a proper comparison of
different policies is to be made.
This slows down the process especially if the kind of cover offered by
the cheapest policies is not for you. The lack of an automatic quality
filter in terms of the policies presented means that, in effect, you
have to consider a lot of policies, discarding most, if you wish to
adopt an objectively prudent approach to getting sensible must-have
policy features.
The FSA has been highly critical of price comparison sites on exactly
this issue - that they place too much emphasis on price and fail to
provide adequate policy information. While the leading price comparison
sites have listened and are now doing better, it remains the case that
a visit to the insurer's website is usually wise to clarify exactly
what you're getting.
Taking account of all of this, we would suggest that going direct to a
top car insurance company - missing out the price comparison site
- is actually a good way to build in good quality control while the
price need not be seen as a potential issue in such a competitive
market where pricing, by necessity, for like policies is close.
A good car
insurance supermarket is an
easy
way to check out these leading car insurance companies and,. we would
suggest, a better way to buy.
|