Car insurance premiums fall 9.5%

Insurancewide.com has released Q3 figures from its recently expanded car insurance comparison tool, which show a 9.5% drop in average car insurance premiums since Q2 (comprehensive and third party).

These figures contradict today’s (third party only) car insurance premium findings released by Deloitte in its motor insurance index, which analysed a sample of 1,000 premiums (risks). The Deloitte index showed a rise of 10% over 12 months. Compared to the small Deloitte sample, UK insurance comparison websites generate over a million quotes per month, of which Insurancewide.com generates a significant proportion.

James Harrison, chief executive of Insurancewide.com, which powers the insurance search engines for Yahoo, MSN, Tiscali and other major finance portals, said today: “Our motor insurance comparison service has access to all types of rates from almost the entire UK insurance market, all of which we draw from when we guide our customers to the most relevant insurer for their needs. The continuing fall (since Q2) in average premiums in Q3 reflects the rates of almost every insurer and broker in the UK, including direct insurers such as Swiftcover.com. We don’t, however, expect the rates to fall much further.”

The Insurancewide.com car insurance premium index reveals that the average UK premium was £626 for July - September 2007, compared to £693 for April – June 2007; that’s a drop of 9.5%. As in Q2, some of the direct insurers proved to be the most competitive.

“Once again, the falling premiums shown by our research reflect the competitive pressure insurers are under to retain and attract ever-savvier customers. We hope that by continuing to include as many insurers and brokers as possible in our comparison service, we can provide a quote for every type of driver, particularly those drivers who other comparison services can’t help because they don’t have enough market coverage.”