Car Insurance in the UK - A Review

Many, probably most, drivers in the UK see getting their car insurance as a simple matter, made easy by the arrival of price comparison sites onto the scene whereby it has become possible to compare car insurance quotes from numerous providers with a single form. What’s not to like about this efficient way to save perhaps well over a hundred pounds on your renewal quote?

Well, as it turns out, there’s much that’s wrong with this approach. Unless your only criterion is to save as much money as possible – and it shouldn’t be – price comparison sites, when used properly, are not the holy grail of car insurance that many people see them as.

Try to get more than, at best, highly summarised policy information from a price comparison site and you’re up against it. If you want to make a properly informed choice, you really do need to look at the individual insurance company websites for enough policy details. While this doesn’t stop you using a price comparison site, it does make the process cumbersome if you’re having to dart back and forth to the insurers’ websites to try to determine the best balance of cost versus cover for your own circumstances.

The more sensible an approach that you take to the cover that it would be desirable to include, the more that price comparison sites become less helpful in making that policy determination. They are only at their best at the budget end of the spectrum and when, misguidedly, consumers allow price to largely determine choice, allowing policy considerations to take a back seat.

If this seems an obtuse approach, you do need to ask, if you bought through a price comparison site yourself in the past, whether you were really adequately informed about what you were getting or you yourself chose to prioritise price considerations.

If it is accepted that using such one form quote services is problematic if you wish to build in quality control, there is a solution - albeit one that most reject on the basis of an assumed lack of a guaranteed best price.

That solution is to go direct to a leading UK car insurance provider. The highly competitive nature of the car insurance market ensures close pricing for like policies. There really is no need to compare lots of prices if you select on the basis of finding the right cover. If it seems implausable that price more or less looks after itself, check out prices for your car from some of these direct car insurance providers using any insurance supermarket site, such as this one.

You’ll quickly find that going direct offers quality at an affordable price that is generally competitive if you buy from the biggest providers.