Comparison sites not trusted, says Which?
18 November 2009
Comparison sites are not providing their users with a good enough service for financial products, finds new research from Which? Money.
In a comparison site satisfaction survey, Which? Money found that the average customer score for these websites was lower for than any other financial sector it has surveyed; no site scored higher than 50%.
Only three in ten said they trusted them to find the best price available, while two thirds thought they would be presented with products that make the websites the most commission.
A quarter of people said they did not buy through a comparison site because they found a cheaper quote elsewhere and 12% said they were unhappy with the quotes they were given.
Even after searching for products on comparison sites, more than half said they bought the product directly from the provider.
Several sites also set quite high default voluntary excesses when a Which? Money expert looked at them in detail. These voluntary excesses are often then combined with the insurer’s compulsory excess on the results page, making it difficult for customers to make comparisons between sites and find the best policy to suit their needs.
The most popular sites were Moneysupermarket.com, Confused.com and Gocompare.com.
Car insurance, home insurance and savings accounts were the most searched for products on the comparison sites.
James Daley, editor of Which? Money, says:_ “We found that using financial comparison sites is clearly not a happy experience for many - all the sites in our survey got low customer scores.
“If you’re shopping around for a good deal, it makes sense to go to more than one site and be aware that some companies aren’t featured. Watch out for things like voluntary excess, and make sure the policy you’re offered is what you actually want.”
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