Bankstone News was fascinated to read within the pages of noted industry journal Insurance Rage about some intriguing new research from comparison site GoCompario.
According to the aforementioned comparison site – a competitor of sites like Compare the Monkey Supermeerkat and Confusing.com – more than 40% of Brits (4.1 million of them, all told) meekly allow their motor insurance policies to roll over when renewal time comes around. A staggering 13% don’t even bother shopping around for better deals before meekly rolling over!
This failure to shop around – or to shop around sufficiently – the comparison site claims, costs affected customers £982m a year. Not each, obviously, but collectively. Because if they don’t shop around and switch insurer every twelve months, they’re likely to be paying the UK’s notorious Motor Insurance Loyalty Fee surcharge. So probably, it would be best if they shopped around, and shopped around plenty – possibly by using a trusted comparison site.
So, what excuses did these lazy motorists who don’t shop around enough come up with to justify their self-punishing indolence? They’re mostly pretty risible, Bankstone News doesn’t mind telling you. According to the comparison site who commissioned this disturbing research, their excuses break down as follows.
Improbably, 22% of them have clearly never heard of MILF and naively assume that their current insurer will continue offering them the most competitive premium.
Meanwhile, 21% brazenly admitted that they couldn’t be bothered to shop around because ‘switching is a lot of hassle’.
Tragically, 19% failed to shop around and switch insurer out of pathetic loyalty to their current insurer – the same insurer who’ll now be milking them like a good ‘un to make up for all the cut-price deals it’s knocking out to get new customers on board.
Ten percent didn’t have the confidence to change (sad!); another 10% couldn’t face the hassle of cancelling a monthly direct debit (also sad!), and 7% (very, very sad!) just found ‘the thought of switching insurer difficult’!
The moral of this story couldn’t be clearer. Loyalty is for losers. Everyone must switch insurer every year. Otherwise their current insurer will probably apply MILF and put their premiums up.
They can do this because, according to the comparison site’s research, only 37% of customers bother to check their new premium against what they paid last year.
Instead of putting premiums up, sneakier insurers will simply trim the cover offered for the same price or add in higher excesses until there’s no way they’ll ever have to pay a penny out. Again, it’s easy to get away with because only 20% of customers check for changes to their cover.
So probably the best thing to do is shop around and switch insurer every year. Did we mention that already?
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