BGL knocks Biba for aggregator views

The BGL Group has slammed Biba’s stance on price comparison sites, calling them “total nonsense” and “prehistoric”.

Last week Biba chief executive Eric Galbraith said that the rise of aggregators had led to consumers buying too much based on price, and that this had increased claims and fraud.

BGL chief operating officer Matthew Donaldson (pictured) said: “I’m staggered at the inaccuracy of the claims Biba is making about price comparison sites – this view is absolutely prehistoric. Consumers are savvy enough not to focus just on price. More than half of customers choose a product that isn’t the cheapest.

“The reason that comparison sites have become so important in our market is that they do exactly what the customer needs them to do – make it easy and simple to buy insurance. They also provide low acquisition costs for insurers and actively work with them to prevent fraud.”

Donaldson added that brokers and insurers using aggregators cleverly were getting “the best loss ratios for a generation”.

He said: “Which is better? Outdated and expensive broker models delivering high cost products to customers and poor returns for underwriters? Or a compelling proposition which delivers whole-of-market choice to customers at a competitive price, works with its partners to improve fraud detection and delivers high volumes of business with low acquisition costs and better than market loss ratios? I think you can guess where I stand on this.”