Insurance comparison good or bad deal?

Insurance comparison – Perhaps we’ve deconstructed some products just too far. We think its time to reconstruct for the individuals not deconstruct for mass market.

The Services Family thinks convenient insurance should mean easy to access, easy to arrange, cost effective and designed to do what you need it to do. Unfortunately sometimes convenience just ends up meaning it costs you more than it should.

Cox’s & King’s did not just issue pay and manage soldiers’ bank accounts, it also arranged insurance for the soldier’s kit because it was convenient for their customers.

Does it infuriate you that people are making money and pushing up your premiums by making false claims? Is it fair that despite you being careful and not making a claim every time you stub your toe that your insurance renewal cost appears to go up and up?

We all have something better to be doing than spending a day searching for a reasonable quote every time we need to renew one of our insurances. The advent of digital systems and comparison websites have made insurance more specialised and possibly less competitive for some people.

So why can’t the insurance company just do the right thing and offer a decent renewal cost that reflects you and your claims history.  Well, yes they could but they don’t really know you, the whole process has become increasingly automated and most people just renew their cover because it’s convenient.

Not me – I compare! So, surely all these comparison sites are good for the consumer? Well not always, they make very black and white assumptions based on what they think you are, who they think you are, what that they expect you to do, how careless they think you’ll be and how much they expect you to claim. These assumptions are convenient for the insurance companies but they depersonalise you.

If you don’t ‘fit’ their expectations then your premium is higher. Digital systems don’t know you and don’t give you any ability to customise the products that you actually need.

Because many of us have unwittingly ticked boxes in multiple online applications we end up unknowingly paying for cover more than once or for inappropriate products. Roadside assistance is the perfect example, cover is often provided on bank accounts, or we get it direct from a provider or as an add on to car insurance – how many roadside assistance packages do you need? did you know that often these packages often only cover one of your cars and not the individual.  Over-coverage is a gravy train for the Insurers!

Ironically, this self service approach was enabled by digital systems but they could also allow a more personal approach to be taken.

One big issue with technology is that people think they are in control!  They push the buttons and, because they think they are in control, they think they are winning the game. They feel empowered because they have shared a ‘decision tree’, that they have achieved a better deal and often brag about it to our mates! Wrong, the system has made its assumptions and quoted accordingly as well as sometimes deliberately missing cheaper quotes because they are not identical.

The Services Family think the game has gone on long enough and people are getting bored with it. In the past, personal brokers constructed a package for you designed to cover your home, effects, cars and pets with a single premium.  Instead of deconstructing what is right for you to make it fit everyone in the mass market, we propose that we reconstruct the right solution for you as an individual, let’s make it fit you, let’s not just make it convenient let’s make it right as well as convenient.

We can’t get there straight away but we can start with trying to fix some better offers in the most common areas like kit/personal effects, house and car insurance. We want to do this by using technology the right way and, we may need to ask for a little more personal information, so that we can reconstruct the right solution for you. But, remember we will not be sharing your personal data except with your agreement, only as long as you want us to and for your benefit.

Bigger discounts should be easily within reach for the honest consumer if the solution is designed for you. If we can empower you, will you empower us to find the right solution for you? let us know, do the survey on our Home Page.

The Services Family are looking at ways we can do this to save you time and effort by delivering value products tailored to your needs – people and products where the customer comes first.