68 Per Cent of Us Still not Switching Car Insurance

Only 32 per cent of us have switched car insurance in the last year, so that’s 68 per cent of the UK still not taking advantage of the internet to research products like motor insurance to find a cheaper policy.

Non-switchers regard the features and type of policy cover more important than people who switch insurers.

1 in 10 insurers have never switched or have been with the same car insurance company for more than 10 years.

The UK’s motorists are way behind when it comes to switching insurance online. This is quite surprising when you think about the numbers of people switching credit card providers or utility and telecoms providers. So why aren’t we all saving ourselves a few hundred quid a year by shopping around for car insurance too?

A whopping 43% of people say they have stayed with their current provider for three years or longer, while 7% of these claim they have never changed their car insurance provider.

For 71% of people who have switched their car insurance within the last 12 months, price is the key factor when choosing their insurance provider. While motorists who have been loyal to their insurance provider for over three years don’t rate price as highly. Instead, only 56% of people who last switched their car insurer three to four years ago named price as the most important factor. This figure drops to just 24% for people who have been with their current car insurance provider for over 10 years.

In contrast to that, 44% of this group values the level of cover (e.g. third party, fully comprehensive) provided by their insurance company as the most important factor when choosing their car insurance policy.

One thing I don’t understand is ‘level of cover provided’ – surely Third Party insurance cover is the same no matter where you buy it? i.e. you’re insured if (God forbid) you crash your car into someone else’s. As far as I understand it this is the least or cheapest kind of insurance you can buy in order to legally drive your car on public roads. Fully Comprehensive insurance cover means you can claim for things like scraping the car wing on a gate post or accidentally reversing into a lamppost etc…You can claim on your insurance to cover the cost of these repairs.

I suppose it’s the insurance companies themselves who are ‘tailoring’ insurance policies by adding additional features and benefits to a ‘normal’ insurance policy in order to attract new customers. This is where the whole ‘getting the right cover for your individual needs, rather than getting the cheapest price’ stems from in the first place.

If insurance companies just provided the basic level of insurance needed to drive legally then I’m sure car insurance would be a whole lot cheaper for everyone anyway…