Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Do you understand who gives you online car insurance quotes?

By HoTMeLter


The availability and accessibility of car insurance quotes has never been higher. The Internet has opened up a whole new world for insurance, but many people still are not making the most of it. Instead of looking around for car insurance quotes they are taking up the option to renew with their existing car insurance provider year after year and missing out on a potential 500 pounds saving.

Mrs Harding in a prime example of this. She has a 2007 Jaguar XKR and had always faced high premiums until she started looking around. She compared all of the available deals and eventually found one that enabled her to save 384 pounds by switching from the same provider she had been with for a few years to Churchill after choosing to search via an aggregator site, which is better known as a comparison site.

Mrs Harding is just one of the thousands of drivers saving money by using a car insurance comparison site, or aggregator as it is officially known. It is easy to get a whole host of quotes from an aggregator by just filling in a few details, such as the car make and model, your postcode, your age and your no claims bonus. An aggregator will usually return between 10 and 100 results, depending on which one you choose to use.

Aggregator sites make the process of obtaining quotes extremely easy. All you have to do is fill in one form to obtain a whole range of quotes to compare.

However, there are disadvantages with aggregator sites. For example, many drivers do not compare the cover effectively and may end up with certain features left off the policy they ultimately choose. They do not look at the actual policy, but only the price. Also, aggregator forms are basic templates and do not ask the specific questions that many car insurance companies actually need to give an accurate quote.

In most cases, the final price will be much higher, as Mr Bennett found out when trying to insure his Vauxhall Corsa 394 pounds as per the quote he was given. It actually cost him 479 pounds because he had no car alarm. This was not a question asked by the aggregator.

It maybe best if you just want to use a household brand name insurer to use the aggregator to compare only these quotes. This may save you a little time but probably not that much.

Going directly to an insurer can have its advantages. You are asked the relevant questions every time and can choose the insurers you prefer to get a quote. It may take a little more time but it may be worth it in the long term.

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