Nearly one in five home insurance shoppers are now using AI to shop around, a level that already rivals telephone shopping and brokers, two channels insurers have spent decades building distribution around. It's the single most striking figure in our latest Insurance Behaviour Tracker data, and it comes from a channel we've only just started measuring.
Our Insurance Behaviour Tracker has run monthly since 2008, surveying thousands of consumers each month across Motor and Home insurance to capture how they shop, switch and experience renewal. When we add a new response option, like AI tools and assistants, we're watching real behaviour shift in near real time, not a one-off snapshot.
We added AI tools and assistants as a selectable shopping channel for the first time in the April 2026 survey. That first reading already shows 18.7% of home insurance shoppers and 13% of motor shoppers using AI, a level that wasn't visible in the tracker before now, not because it wasn't happening, but because we weren't yet asking the question.
To put that in context: in home insurance, AI usage (18.7%) is already within touching distance of telephone shopping (17%) and ahead of brokers (14.5%). A channel we've only just started measuring is already rivalling two channels insurers have built entire distribution strategies around. This is a single reading, not yet a trend, so we're treating it as a first indication rather than a settled baseline; the picture should sharpen as more waves of data come in.
This isn't a broad-based shift yet. It's a sharp early-adopter curve, concentrated in a few overlapping groups:
The overlap between London, full-time employment and AI usage points to a likely occupational effect. People who already use AI tools as part of their day-to-day job may simply be more inclined to reach for them when shopping for insurance too, which would help explain why the pattern clusters around professional hubs rather than following age or income alone.
The more interesting wrinkle is that AI usage also scales with how much is at stake financially. Shoppers with premiums between £700 and £1,000 are four to six times more likely to use AI than those paying under £200. Recent claimants (who typically face steeper renewal premiums) also over-index on AI usage versus non-claimants.
That combination suggests AI shopping isn't purely a tech-savvy novelty. People appear to reach for it specifically when the financial upside of shopping around harder is bigger, treating it as a tool for serious price-hunting, not just convenience.
Two things suggest this is the start of something bigger, not a one-off:
The headline shopping and switching numbers across the market have been remarkably static this year, premiums stabilising, behaviour barely shifting. AI doesn't fit that pattern. Rather than a channel quietly building momentum over time, its first reading looks closer to a disruption: a shopping method already operating at broker/telephone-like scale, uncovered the moment we started measuring it, in a market where every other channel has flatlined.
For insurers and PCWs, the message is straightforward: the audience testing AI-based journeys today looks a lot like the audience that will define the channel tomorrow. Getting the AI-native experience right now, while the channel is still forming, may matter more than it appears from today's modest overall share. There's a sharper opportunity here too: AI usage skews toward higher-premium shoppers, so building a genuine AI-facing presence, in effect a version of SEO for AI, could offer insurers a route to writing new policies in an otherwise saturated, low-switching market.
As AI reshapes how people shop for insurance, the insurers watching closely will be the ones ready for it. Get the full monthly data in our Insurance Behaviour Tracker.