Tesco insurance

[Wee Jack]

I imagine not. I imagine Tesco has signed up exclusively with Zenith and have agreed their own wordings to get the cheapest prices possible.

AH !! interesting . I didn't know it worked like that.

I have what looks like a standard policy booklet with the conditions etc printed in there . So Zenith and their kin will produce a different booklet for each major broker the deal with - Esure/Aquote/Tescos etc ??? I did not know that. Seems like and awful lot of phaphing around when you look at the whole raft of companies used by each broker.

So what does the industry journo do when he's hunting down an insurance deal ??

[Whealie]

AH !! interesting . I didn't know it worked like that.

I have what looks like a standard policy booklet with the conditions etc printed in there . So Zenith and their kin will produce a different booklet for each major broker the deal with - Esure/Aquote/Tescos etc ??? I did not know that. Seems like and awful lot of phaphing around when you look at the whole raft of companies used by each broker.

So what does the industry journo do when he's hunting down an insurance deal ??

It is more complex than that. Very few brokers have agency agreements with every single insurer, so they rarely trawl the whole market. They have a target audience and they deal with insurers interested in that audience.

Some brokers set the policy minimums and then ask insurers to bid against those standards, others get quotes from different insurers and then compare the cover and make a recommendation based on the overall picture - they may tell you that they think the cheapest quotes is not the best cover.

The comparison websites work even faster with insurers tweaking their cover levels and prices to get higher up the rankings - but only for the sorts of bikes and riders they are interested in.

Essentially, however, the only real way to be cheaper is to reduce the risk of claims, which usually means reducing the cover (adding exclusions or increasing the excess).

The added complication is that - surprise surprise - if an insurer increases the amount it will pay to a broker in commission that broker tends to recommend more of that insurers products.

Oh and some insurers refuse to deal with particular brokers or websites or increase their prices to that broker because they have had a poor claims records from that broker's clients - that is why one broker can get a cheaper quote from the same insurer.

Policies that fix you to one bike will be cheaper than those with more flexibility (to add or change bikes). Insurers who pay out more slowly on claims or contest more claims will be cheaper than prompt payers, and so on.

But to all this there are, as ever, exceptions.

So I would always go with a broker who had a reputation to maintain within the biker community, who could offer advice on the type of cover I might need in my current and possible future riding and who would help me battle against an intransigent insurer in the event of a claim.