Warning over price comparison sites
Updated on 29 January 2009
People using financial comparison websites to look for the best deals on home or car insurance should be aware of hidden excess costs, Which? warned.
In an investigation of six sites for the consumer rights organisation's online arm, researchers found excess charges were often altered or not clearly displayed.
According to which.co.uk, this made it difficult for customers to assess quotes on a like-for-like basis and to find the best policy.
It said in some cases details typed in by researchers were changed by websites to give cheaper - but not necessarily better - results.
For example, the cheapest quote on Gocompare.com came with a £470 excess even though the researcher in the north of England had entered a voluntary excess of £250.
Adding compulsory excess charges on top of the voluntary excess without warning customers was a major problem, which.co.uk said.
Another issue was failing to reveal compulsory excess charges, a crime committed by Comparethemarket.com on its home insurance results pages.
The excess is the amount of a claim that customers have to pay before the insurer steps in to cover repairs. The compulsory part is set by the insurer and the voluntary is an extra sum the customer can add to reduce the premium.
Which.co.uk concluded the sites failed to act as one-stop-shops because none of them consistently provided the cheapest quote based on the researchers' criteria.
It found differences between the cheapest quotes on the different sites, with one home owner in South Wales being quoted £219 from Confused.com, whereas the cheapest quote from uSwitch was £407.
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