"Our research shows it’s still the case that the price quoted by your insurer is not necessarily the best price you can get."
- Jenny Ross, Which? money editor
In a recent survey taken by 14,000 Which? customers, the consumer champion site found that 51% of those with home insurance were paying higher premiums than they had the previous year. Similarly, 43% of customers with car insurance were paying more annually.
Among those seeing a rise, the average increase was £35 for car insurance and £41 for home insurance customers. However, more importantly, out of those customers paying more, 50% were set to renew their policies with their current car or home insurer. switched (PA)
Which? has suggested that customers should haggle or switch to reduce insurance pay-outs, with 25% of those surveyed claiming they discussed the price with their insurer and 48% of those people managed to reduce their premiums. This equates to an average saving of £56 for car insurance and £54 for home insurance.
Furthermore, those who switched insurers also made considerable savings, averaging £43 for car insurance and £103 for home insurance.
These findings come after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) put a ban in place against ‘loyalty penalties’ at the start of this year.
The FCA found that millions of home and motor insurance customers were losing out by renewing with their existing providers, so new rules were implemented to stop car and home insurers from offering different prices to new and renewing customers.
Jenny Ross, Which? money editor, has said:
“With household budgets under huge strain at the moment, it’s important not to renew your insurance without first checking if you could pay less. Doing your research on comparison sites, haggling and switching remain effective ways of bringing down the cost of home and car insurance.”
