Defaqto launches insurance comparison tool

Independent financial research company Defaqto today entered the debate about the value of using online price comparison sites to get the cheapest quote for insurance by announcing the launch of an online product quality comparison tool.

The comparison system (known as Defaqto Compare!) is available free on the consumer portal website find.co.uk and covers car insurance, home buildings and home contents policies.

Consumers who have obtained a quote from a price comparison site can now easily compare the cover on offer from ALL policies in the direct market, rather than just those which feature on that particular site, and with whom the price comparison website may well have a business arrangement.

Brian Brown, Head of Insight at Defaqto said “It is vital that before buying any insurance policy customers check to make sure it gives the cover they need, rather than just buying it because they are told it is the cheapest policy in the market.”

With the integrity of best buy tables and price comparison sites being challenged on all sides, Defaqto Compare! is the first system that is genuinely free of any bias either in the selection of the policies included or in the features selected for comparisons. No insurers pay to appear on the comparison tool, and the features analysed are chosen by Defaqto’s industry experts.

The data that powers the Defaqto Compare! is drawn from Defaqto Limited’s database and is fed directly into the Find.co.uk website. The data is kept up to date by an extensive team of researchers constantly reviewing and updating policies.

Commenting on this development, Kate Marsden, Group Marketing Director, said, “At last consumers can compare products on the basis of the quality of their cover and not just on price. This is a real breakthrough in empowering consumers to ensure that they get the cover levels they need. It avoids the lottery of wondering whether the cheapest product selected on a web comparison site actually provides the cover levels needed.

We expect consumers to continue to demand value for money and to continue to use product comparison sites and best buy tables. What they can do now is to check out the quality of each policy on the find.co.uk website and then make their purchase on this basis of the extra information available.”