Gocompare.com welcomes Tesco to the comparison market

Insurance comparison site Gocompare.com has welcomed the arrival of Tesco to market and christened the revolution, being led by a new wave of product-focused comparison sites, as Comparison 2.0.

The approach taken by Tesco firmly positions the supermarket brand alongside Gocompare.com as one of the websites introducing innovation into the market by switching the focus onto product quality as well as price competitiveness, while letting the customer steer and tailor the search process.

Gocompare.com founder Hayley Parsons said: “Tesco has obviously looked at the early insurance aggregator sites and learned from their mistakes. They want to be seen as part of the new wave of comparison sites that is shaping the future of this channel as it enters its second wave. It is particularly good to see them also taking a product-led approach.

“The revolution taking place in the online comparison world is worthy of the tag Comparison 2.0. While the ‘Aggregator Old Guard’ continues to focus on listing prices rather than comparing products, Tesco, like ourselves, has had the luxury of developing a green field site and their entry and approach should help to grow the market for online insurance comparisons.”

However, Hayley Parsons warned that with just 30 products available the site is less comprehensive than the existing Big Three comparison services and the addition of the RBS brands may not be of huge significance to customers.

Parsons continued: “Until now it was almost impossible for consumers to compare the RBS family against the rest of the market. It is a bit like the Berlin Wall coming down in insurance terms – the RBS brands haven’t been under the comparison site spotlight until now. And you still have to ask yourself why RBS Insurance is choosing to protect its flagship brand Direct Line from the full glare of online comparison? With the greater transparency of comparison sites; price, cover levels and value for money are all fully exposed. It is going to be interesting to see how they stack up against the dozens of brands that have been competing on comparison sites for a number of years.”