Which? Money report comes under fire.
Criticism of aggregators has once again been met with a verbal backlash by the sites themselves as they attempt to stand their ground.
The online price comparison sites were dealt a blow following a Which? Money investigation which looked at the how the sites compared on price for the same products.
One example found that for a Bradford & Bingley home contents policy that cost £68 direct with the insurer, cost £72 on Moneysupermarket, £83 on Confused and up to £100 on Gocompare.
The report also found that in the majority of cases the cheapest quote was different on each website. For example, a home contents policy varied from £51 on Gocompare to £71 on Confused.
With the findings claiming that consumers would often be better searching for a deal direct with an insurer as an alternative to comparing prices on aggregator sites, the validity of the report has come in to question amongst the aggregator community.
Hayley Parsons, chief executive of Gocompare.com, claimed that the research was nearly two months out of date and that the business has since added even more insurers and products. She said that not all comparison sites compare the same products from the same insurers, so the results would inevitably be different.
Carlton Hood, chief executive of Confused.com, told Insurance Times that if the report had highlighted more than one quote it might have been a different story. He said the report was “unrepresentative”.
Hood, recently appointed to the role, will talk in greater detail about the role of aggregators in an exclusive interview with Insurance Times in September.
