Concerns over comparison sites
Updated on 12 November 2008
The City watchdog has called on insurance comparison websites to improve some of the information they give to consumers shopping around for quotes.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said a review of the sites showed that many had made "significant improvements" and were consistently providing clear and fair information.
But it said some firms needed to go further to address concerns it had about the information provided on the level of excesses on policies and the assumptions made when generating a quote.
The regulator said the websites generally showed the level of the excess but were often unable to show the split between the compulsory and voluntary excess, often because they did not have this information from the insurers themselves.
It added that where comparison sites made assumptions about people in order to generate quotes, they did not always set this out clearly, with it often buried in the small print instead of being more prominent.
The FSA visited 17 comparison websites, which collectively represented 50% of all sales, following an initial review that had been carried out earlier in the year.
This review uncovered a number of problems, including that the sites could be misleading consumers because of the way they presented information.
The number of comparison websites available and the number of consumers using them has seen significant growth in recent years.
In 2007, one in four of all private motor insurance policies was taken out through one of the sites, which generated 30 million quotes during the year.
Dan Waters, the FSA's director of retail policy and conduct risk, said: "We have contacted all websites involved in our review, to set out our findings and the standards we expect. Where needed, we are requiring firms to take prompt action to address our remaining concerns."
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