Compare The Market Car Insurance Review

REVIEW OF COMPARETHEMARKET.com

CAR INSURANCE COMPANY: Compare The Market
Website: http://www.comparethemarket.com

Type: Insurance aggregator price comparison website owned by Insurance Brokers.

We asked a large team of people to visit the Compare The Market Car Insurance website and report back to us about how easy it was to use and whether the website offered all the car insurance services and covers they required as customers.
Our Car Insurance review team consisted of a cross section of UK demographics, car types , occupations and ages; the only common factor was that none of the team had bought car insurance online before.
The object of the car insurance review was to rate the ease of use, online information, cover options and services of the website; not just to compare car insurance quotes and covers.



About the Website:
comparethemarket.com is one of the top UK price comparison websites comparing over 400 prices for car insurance. It is owned and operated by BISL, formerly Budget Insurance Services Ltd.
Visitors to comparethemarket.com can benefit from comparisons between top providers against various products including car, home and van insurance to receive quotes instantly!
Compare the Market claim that 99% of visitors to the site could save money on their car insurance!*
The website has enjoyed massive UK interest thanks to the viral TV ad campaign featuring Alexsandr the Meerkat and the social media website ComparetheMeerkat.com.

*Based on online independent research by Consumer Intelligence during 01 November 2009 to 30 November 2009.



The Review

Q. Is the car insurance company offering any special discounts or offers?
A. As a comparison site it has different companies offering different offers and discounts.

Q. Is telephone help readily available from the webpage?
A. No, but there is a choice of websites offering phone help and services.

Q. Is there a claims section readily accessible?
A. No, claims are dealt with by the company issuing the policy

Q. Was it easy to find the quote page?
A. Yes, very easy.

Q. Was there an option to recall a previous quote?
A. Yes, through an account you can set up.

Policy Restrictions?

Q. Are there any restrictions to getting a quote?
A. Some

Q. What are the minimum and maximum ages?
A. There are none

Q. Do they cover all professions?
A. Yes.

Q. Are Kit Cars, Q plates and modified vehicles covered?
A. They do not cover q plates.

Q. Do they cover Northern Ireland (NI)?
A. Yes, they cover the whole of the UK but have less offerings for NI.

Q. Are drivers with convictions covered?
A. Yes, but they require details of all convictions in the last 5 years.

Q. How many claims in the last three years are allowed?
A. There was no limit

Getting a Quote

Q. How many pages are there before you get a quote?
A. Three.

Q. Does the application find your address easily from the postcode?
A. Yes

Q. What is the maximum number of NCD years allowed?
A. Nine +

Q. Can you protect your No Claims Bonus?
A. Yes, Individual offers from different companies have different extras attached, most charge an additional premium.

Q. Does the car details come automatically from the DVLA when the registration number is entered?
A. Yes, or you can enter the car details manually if the registration isn’t known.

Q. What are the maximum and minimum Voluntary Excess Amounts?
A. You could not alter the excess without choosing a quote from a particular company.

Q. How many accidents are you allowed?
A. There was no limit but you had to give all details of any previous claims.

General Observations

Q. Was it easy to understand what the questions wanted? Were there any help boxes?
A. Yes, very easy with help boxes on most questions.

Q. Were all the questions necessary?
A. Yes, it appeared so.

Q. Could you change things like voluntary excess to get a requote?
A. No.

Q. How long did it take to get a quote?
A. Under 5 minutes.

Q. How many quotes were returned?
A. On average 58.

Q. Were the quotes competitive?
A. Yes, quotes offered had a range of over GBP 1500 difference

Q. Do the quotes offered have different levels of cover?
A. Yes, they varied quite a lot between different companies

Q. Can you go back and requote?
A. No

Q. Did you understand the levels of cover you were getting?
A. There were brief descriptions of the levels of cover offered by different companies

Q. What additional covers were offered eg Breakdown cover, glass cover etc?
A. Different companies had different additions at differing costs.

Q. Were these covers included or do you have to pay extra?
A. The additions available were inclusive in the quote.

Q. Could you remove covers to make the quote cheaper?
A. No.

Q. Can you save the quote to return to this site later?
A. Yes, and they emailed your top quotes for you to study in your own time.

Q. Are you offered the policy documents and keyfacts documents to read before you purchase?
A. No, the quote when followed up provide only a reference and a telephone number

Q. Was this easy or discouraged from viewing these documents before purchasing?
A. Only available once you have chosen a company.

Q. What payment methods are available?
A. All

Q. Were you asked for more personal or car details before you could purchase? If yes what?
A. No

Q. How did you find the navigation? Was it easy to move around?
A. It was simple but basic.

Q. Did you like or dislike this site? Why?
A. The site was generally very easy to use.

Q. Did the site live up to any expectations - eg from ads or TV ads
A. There was a lack of information about products though the range was very good.

Q. Was the site quick or slow?
A. Fairly quick.

Q. Was the site easy to use? On a scale of 1 to 5 , 1 being hard to use and 5 being very easy - how would you rate it
A. 4/5



Overall Comparethemarket.com was well received by the majority of our respondants, with good value prices and a clean easy to use website. Further product information would be an improvement.

How Where You Live Affects Your Car Insurance Premiums

If you want to save money on your car insurance, then the best thing to do may be...
To Move!

One of the most important rating factors used to calculate your car insurance premiums is your postcode, or risk address of where your vehicle is kept overnight. If you live a a 'bad' postcode area your premium will be hammered!

Endsleigh have just released their annual motor theft index, based on analysis of claims over the last three years from tens of thousands of policyholders.






The report, ranks towns and cities by comparing the frequency of claims against a National Average rather than the total number of incidents.



Click to enlarge


The report shows that Swindon is the safest place in the country for claims, with another West Country town Cheltenham coming in second. Incidently, Endsleigh just happens to be based in Cheltenham.

Hull fared the worst with 85% more claims than the UK National average.

A spokesman for Endsleigh said: "Recent Government statistics have shown a national reduction in car crime by almost a fifth over the past year, however, some towns and cities are riskier than others.

"Endsleigh's statistics show that eight out of the top 10 riskiest places for motor theft are in the Midlands and North of England, with four cities in Yorkshire making the list.

Only two cities in southern England, London and Reading, are named in the top 10."

The Coppers from Humberside have challenged the findings and produced other statistics to show vehicle crime was falling in Hull.

Det Chief Insp Scott Young said: "Vehicle crime is an area of success for Hull and it is difficult to gauge how Endsleigh Insurance captures its data.

"I am very pleased to say,however, that using official sources, Hull performs exceptionally well in the area of vehicle crime and I would gladly counter any other argument in relation to that.

"Hull is a safe place to live and work and Humberside Police works very hard to ensure that it stays that way."

Whether the Police feel they are doing their job in your area or not, is at the end of the day irrelevant, as the Association of British Insurers (ABI) produce the postcode tables from aggregated claims data, which is used by the major UK car insurance companies for rating.

If you are fortunate enough to live in Swindon, Cheltenham, Solihull, Southampton, Bangor, Norwich, Exeter, Maidstone, Preston or Lincoln we suggest you definitely check out Endsleigh for Cheaper car insurance.

If you are unfortunate enough to live in Hull, Nottingham, Manchester, Doncaster, London or any other place that has a high degree of joy-riders, we suggest you compare car insurance using one of the many excellent comparison websites you will find on Car Insurance Television.

Admiral Multi-Car Insurance

Do you own more than one car in your household?

Are you sick of being charged additional costs and fed up with managing multiple car insurance policies?

Then Admiral Car Insurance has the solution.

Get an Admiral Multi Car Insurance quote

Admiral Multicar is the only true Multi Car insurance policy on the market and allows those with multiple cars in their household to save from 10% to in excess of 23% on their combined policy costs.

Admiral Mutli Car Insurance also offers the following benefits:

• GBP 100,000 legal protection.
• GBP 5,000 personal injury cover.
• Free guaranteed courtesy car while yours is repaired at an authorised garage.
• Up to GBP 1,250 Stereo cover for each car.
• Control your policy with flexible excess options.
• Free windscreen repair.

Get an Admiral Multi Car Insurance quote

Compare Car Insurance at Car Insurance Televison and save money on your car insurance!

Endsleigh Car Insurance Review

We asked a large team of people to visit the Endsleigh Car Insurance website and report back to us about how easy it was to use and whether the website offered all the car insurance services and covers they required.
The Car Insurance review team consisted of a cross section of UK demographics, car types , occupations and ages; the only common factor was that none of the team had bought car insurance online before.
The object of the review was to rate the ease of use, online information, cover options and services of the website; not just to compare car insurance quotes and covers.

CAR INSURANCE COMPANY: Endsleigh Car Insurance
Website: http://www.endsleigh.co.uk
Insurance Website Type : Car Insurance Brokers offering comparative backend quoting system

REVIEW

Q. Are Endsleigh car insurance offering any special discounts or offers?
A. There were no offers displayed.

Q. Is there a discount if you purchase online?
A. My quote claimed that an online discount had been applied but I was not made aware there was one!

Q. Is telephone help readily available from the webpage?
A. There is a link to a contact page with many numbers and email addresses.

Q. Is there a claims section readily accessible?
A. Yes, and easy to use with options for online claims as well.

Q. Was it easy to find the quote page?
A. Yes, very and straightforward.

Q. Was there an option to recall a previous quote?
A. Yes, you could save quotes to recall later.






About Cover and Policy Restrictions.

Q. Are there any restrictions to getting a quote?
A. There were none immediately obvious in getting a quote - they came across as accepting of all types of drivers.

Q. What are the minimum and maximum ages?
A. They had a separate section for drivers over 50.

Q. Do they cover all professions?
A. Yes

Q. Are Kit Cars, Q plates and modified vehicles covered?
A. Yes but need they all need declaring.

Q. Do they cover Northern Ireland (NI)?
A. They cover the U.K but were unclear about NI.

Q. Are drivers with convictions covered?
A. Yes motoring Convictions, but they need to know how many you have had in the last three years.

Q. How many claims in the last three years are allowed?
A. They did not ask about previous claims, or give a maximum claims allowed.

Getting A Quote

Q. How many pages are there before you get a quote?
A. 1.

Q. Does the application find your address easily from the postcode?
A. Yes.

Q. What is the maximum number of NCD years allowed?
A. 9 years.

Q. Can you protect NCD?
A. Yes, for an extra premium.

Q. Does the car details come automatically from the DVLA when the registration number is entered?
A. Yes or you can enter manually.

Q. What are the maximum and minimum Voluntary Excess Amounts?
A. GBP 0 to GBP 2000

General Thoughts

Q. Was it easy to understand what the questions wanted and were there help boxes?
A. There were help boxes on all the necessary questions.

Q. Were all the questions necessary?
A. Yes and less intrusive than usual.

Q. Could you change things like voluntary excess to get a requote.
A. Yes.

Q. How long did it take to get a quote?
A. Less than 5 mins.

Q. How many quotes were returned?
A. 1.

Q. Do the quotes offered have different levels of cover?
A. You chose the cover as you made the quote.

Q. Can you go back and requote?
A. Yes, by amending your details on the same page.

Q. Did you understand the levels of cover you were getting?
A. Yes, the help boxes were very clear and informative.

Q. What additional covers options were offered?
A. The site offered many covers such as road rage, repair guarantee, legal, wind screen cover but most were an optional extra unless comprehensive.

Q. Were these covers included or do you have to pay extra?
A. They were included for comprehensive cover.

Q. Could you remove covers to make the quote cheaper?
A. You are originally quoted with no extras attached and then you add what extras you want and your quote builds up.

Q. Can you save the quote to return to this site later?
A. Yes.

Q. Are you offered the policy documents and keyfacts documents to read before you purchase?
A. Yes but you cannot find them anywhere until you get to the final stages of a quote.

Q. Was this easy or discouraged from viewing these documents before purchasing?
A. It was encouraged.

Q. What payment methods are available?
A. All methods including monthly premiums.

Q. Were you asked for more personal or car details before you could purchase? If yes what?
A. I could not proceed without the registration number.

Overall Opinions of the Website

Q. How did you find the navigation? Was it easy to move around?
A. The site was simple to navigate.

Q. Did you like or dislike this site? Why?
A. Ok - The site seemed good at first but when explored didnt feel very informative as you couldn't view policy documents until the system had decided the insurance company.
Very good competitive premiums for students and young drivers generally.

Q. Was the website quick or slow?
A. Fairly quick - especially quick to get a quote.

Q. Was the site easy to use? On a scale of 1 to 5 , 1 being hard to use and 5 being very easy - how would you rate it?

A. The site was very simple to use with a fast quotes. it could have been more informative about the products. Overall score 4/5.

All our respondents were impressed at the speed of Endsleigh Car Insurance in returning quotes. The site is flexible and offers a wide range of covers, and is particularly goood for young drivers, professionals and some specialist markets.
Being an Insurance Broker, Endsleigh Car Insurance is able to offer excellent additional services such as claims and telephone assistance.

A Car Insurance Television Review 2010.

Admiral Car Insurance Review

We asked a large team of people to visit Admiral Car Insurance and report back to us about how easy it was to use the website and whether the website offered all the car insurance services and covers they required.
The team consisted of a cross section of UK demographics, car ownership and ages; the only common factor was that none of the team had bought car insurance online before.

The object of the review was to rate the usability, car insurance cover offerings and services of the website, and not just the premiums and prices quoted.



REVIEW OF ADMIRAL CAR INSURANCE
Website: http://www.admiral.com

Q. Is the car insurance company offering any special discounts or offers?
A. Yes,10% online discount

Q. Are the discounts only available if you purchase online?
A. No, even if you call to purchase after getting a price online you'll still get the discount

Q. Is telephone help readily available from the webpage?
A. There are 2 numbers available for getting help with quotes on single and multi car policys and an extensive 'contact us' section with many numbers and addresses

Q. Is there a claims section readily accessible?
A. There is a link to a claims page with all the necessary form available for print, download or to be completed online

Q. Was it easy to find the quote page?
A. The link was central on the opening page of the site

Q. Was there an option to recall a previous quote?
A. Yes, you created an account during the quote process


Policy Restrictions

Are there any restrictions to getting a quote

Q. What are the minimum and maximum ages?
A. There appeared to be no age resctrictions

Q. Do they cover all professions?
A. Yes

Q. Are Kit Cars, Q plates and modified vehicles covered?
A. Yes

Q. Do they cover Northern Ireland (NI)?
A. There policy extends to the whole UK however it is unclear

Q. Are drivers with convictions covered?
A. Yes

Q. How many claims in the last three years are allowed?
A. There was no maximum

Getting a Quote

Q. How many pages are there before you get a quote?
A. 5

Personal details

Q. Does the application find your address easily from the postcode?
A. Yes, and it asks you your house number before the search so you don't have to choose from a list

Q. What is the maximum number of NCD years allowed?
A. 9+ years

Q. Can you protect your NCD?
A. You could opt for protected and guaranteed NCD years but it cost an additional premium

Car details

Q. Does the car details come automatically from the DVLA when the reg no is entered?
A. Yes, but you could enter the details manually if you wanted to.

Q. What are the maximum and minimum Voluntary Excess Amounts?
A. GBP 0 to GBP 1000 - changing these affected the premium considerably.

Claims details

Q. How many accidents are you allowed?
A. They wanted to know about all your accidents and claims but there was no obvious limit

General Observations

Q. Was it easy to understand what the questions wanted and were there help boxes?
A. The majority of the questions had help boxes but was easy enough not to need them

Q. Were all the questions necessary?
A. Yes

Q. Could you change things like voluntary excess to get a requote?
A. You could change details about your quote on the final price page and the quote responded accordingly

Q. How long did it take to get a quote?
A. About 5 mins

Q. How many quotes were returned?
A. Just 1

Q. Do the quotes offered have different or varying levels of cover?
A. No, but you could amend your quote details and therefore change your level of cover and requote.

Q. Can you go back and requote?
A. Yes you could requote as much as you wanted

Q. Did you understand the levels of cover you were getting?
A. There was no description of the differences in covers

Q. What additional covers were offered?
A. They offered windscreen, courtesy car and stereo cover as basic, then breakdown, personal injury and hire car at a charge

Q. Could you remove covers to make the quote cheaper?
A. You could not remove the inclusive covers

Q. Can you save the quote to return to this site later?
A. Yes through your account..

Q. Are you offered the policy documents and keyfacts documents to read before you purchase?
A. The documents are all available to view and download from the main page.

Documents available:
Policy Documents
Keyfacts:
Top Up Cover
Admiral Garage and Repair Network
Admiral Breakdown Cover
Admiral Hire Car Cover

Q. Was this easy or discouraged from viewing these documents before purchasing?
A. Easy.
.

Purchasing Admiral Car Insurance

Q. What payment methods are available?
A. You could pay online with any major credit/debit card also you could set up a direct debit and you could finish the quote over the telephone.

Q. Were you asked for more personal or car details before you could purchase? If yes what?
A. No

Overall

Q. How did you find the navigation? Was it easy to move around the website?
A. Good, you could move around the site whilst getting your quote as the quote process was done in a separate window.

Q. Did you like or dislike this site? Why?
A. Like - The site was enjoyable to use because it felt honest and upfront although the premiums occasionally seemed very high in comparison.

Q. Was the website quick or slow?
A. The site itself was quick to navigate around and the quote process also

Q. Was the site easy to use?
On a scale of 1 to 5 , 1 being hard to use and 5 being very easy - how would you rate it?
A. 5 - The site was simple, quick and clear.



Get an Admiral Car Insurance Quote

So there you have it - Admiral comes out top on usability with a maximum vote of five from our team, that is going to take some beating. It looks like the Business Analysts at Admiral have done a fantastic job on the online functionality of this website! Let us know your thoughts on this website.

Read More Car Insurance Reviews and Compare Cheap Car Insurance Quotes from hundreds of specialist suppliers.

Car Insurance - It's all a game - Innit?

Cheap flight expert Stelios the Greek, must be a secret gaming geek!

His financial services company Easymoney has commissioned a Car Insurance 'platform' game, presumably in a bid to get his brand awareness raised amongst those members of society that like computer games and running over great big fat Bulldogs in Cars....Ooooh yes!




The game has ten levels (yes I played it!)each one dedicated to splattering into the gutter one of the major players in the UK car insurance market.
It must be fairly old as you get a chance to run over a Lloyds black horse as well as that annoying rat from Esure......No Dear not Michael Winner!
He's rather rude about the freshness of Tesco's veg as well!

There's certainly no mention of the Meerkat, Opera Singer,Tiger or Television so I guess this game never went viral.

Maybe its time to commission Insurance Hunter2 - The curse of the aggregator!

If you fancy playing the game click here.

If you are a real car insurance hunter looking to Compare Car Insurance don't waste your time online playing silly games!

Motor Insurance premium set to soar in 2010 says Deloitte:

By Car Insurance Blogger Kris Oldland

A recent report from global financial consulting giant Deloitte points to an uncertain year ahead for the Motor Insurance industry.

Worryingly the report indicates that the industry as a whole could make underwriting losses of up to GBP1bn in 2009 if not for the support of prior year releases.
Deloitte also suggest that for the motor insurance industry, worth some GBP12bn, these losses are likely to continue into 2010.
Estimates suggest that car insurers will have to raise their premiums by a minimum of 5% to replace the lost income resulting from lower investment returns.

Insurance associate partner at Deloitte, James Rakow, commented that: "Results at a headline level for UK motor insurers have shown this market cruising along at close to underwriting breakeven point from 2001 to 2007."

Looking at the latest annual results available (2008), the headline net operating ratio is reported at 105%. In real terms this translates to Motor Insurers making an underwriting loss of GBP5 for every GBP100 of premium. However there is rising concern that unlike in 2008 where the investment market conditions were good enough for insurers to recoup this underwriting loss and make a small insurance profit, the additional revenue streams simply are not able to compensate this time around.

Mr. Rakow also voiced his concerns regarding this area stating that: "Looking beneath the likely headline result for 2009, the picture is even worse for motor insurers.
Indications are that the current year trading is far from being profitable at a market level and this is likely to remain the case in 2010. For the last few years prior year reserve releases have been at exceptionally high levels. I do not expect to see anything other than modest levels of reserve releases in 2009."

Figures from Deloitte's Motor Premium index are showing that the current rise in motor insurance premiums are increasing at the fastest rate seen since the index began back in 2003.
Premiums for comprehensive cover have soared in particular showing a rise of 11% for the year (to September 2009) and with a rise of 4% in the third quarter of the year also it appears that there is little to indicate that this trend will slow down at any time soon.

Speaking with particular regard to these premium increases, Mr. Rakow said: "One piece of positive news for motor insurers is that there is now strong evidence in the market that motor premiums are on the increase.
This is not such good news for consumers who may find it increasingly difficult to compare car insurance and to shop around for a cheaper premium at renewal.
With lower investment returns and the prospect of only modest support from prior year reserve releases insurers have had to look to premium increases to improve their results."

As Mr. Rakow suggests there is certainly the hint of a silver lining in motor premiums being on the increase for Motor Insurers, however these increases will have to be particularly fierce for many to make underwriting motor insurance a profitable sector again. However, for the consumer, who will almost unilaterally will face a steep increase in the cost of insuring their vehicles, this will be of little comfort.

Also we are now seeing the motor insurance market now becoming more a more integrated with a bloated aggregator model. Ironically the aggregator market has now developed to become a daunting and confusing landscape of its own after setting out to simplify the market for us humble consumers just a few years ago.

The confusion of meerkat's, tenors and tigers now just seems to add another layer of choice into the process. Add to this the current worries about dual pricing where we are faced with having to leave our current insurer to guarantee a better deal and finding decent value motor insurance in 2010 seems like a lot of hard work.


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