March 8th was International Women’s Day, a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
With motor insurance premiums set to rise further, and a reminder of this in renewal notices when changes come into force showing last year’s premium, we expect to see an increase in consumers shopping around for quotes and contacting their insurer.
Once a quarter the market gets an update on what is happening with premiums. Whether you look at our own Consumer Intelligence insurance index or the AA’s British Insurance Premium index, one thing holds true, the price of motor insurance is rising.
Motor Insurance prices have continued to increase this quarter, with middle of the market ages seeing the greatest rise, according to our latest price index.
Hastings has been the fastest growing motor insurance brand of the last six months, according to the latest research from Consumer Intelligence, growing its market share at renewal by 0.8 percentage points.
Motor insurance brands have two opposing views of the way that consumers pay for their insurance, which creates a distortion when it comes to competitive pricing, new research from Consumer Intelligence reveals. Consumers who choose to select monthly payment as their payment preference will be presented with a different set of top ten brands than those who choose to pay annually.
CEO Ian Hughes argues that with insurers such as Aviva and Direct Line forging a path for other cover providers to follow, we could soon be entering an era of re-disintermediation – although in a different way to the rise of the direct insurer as spearheaded by Direct Line.
The increase in the cost of renewal premiums witnessed since the increase in IPT in November 2015 has also re-focused consumer interest on price.
Up until October 2015, the proportion of consumers not shopping around at motor insurance renewal had been on a steady increase, with more than one in five consumers accepting their renewal premium without seeking quotes elsewhere between August and October last year – the highest three month period on record.
Recent years have brought calm and stability to the UK motor insurance market, with near-static renewal premiums bringing with it increased loyalty and fewer consumers shopping around to find a better deal at renewal.
