Tech Talk: Comparing comparisons

So there’s no obvious way of telling whether the site with the meerkats is likely to procure you a better deal than the one with the fat opera singer.

Still, there are a few self-help tips you can practice to make sure that when you compare the market for fuel, phone deals or insurance, you really are comparing the entire market and not just a cartel of conspiratorial underwriters.

It’s reckoned that more than half of us regularly use comparison sites like Go Compare (fat opera singer), Compare The Market (meerkats) and Confused.com (manic cartoon woman). Other popular choices are Money Extra, Money Supermarket and Uswitch. You don’t pay anything (directly) for using them; instead, they take a commission from the supplier when you complete a deal, in much the same way as a traditional insurance broker. They may also make money by selling your address, phone numbers and other details to third-parties – so tick the “no publicity” box if you don’t want this to happen.

Each service scans a variety of companies for quotes based on the information you supply, and typically produces several dozen for each transaction – but it would be a mistake to think these represent the best deal. Some providers, Direct Line and Aviva among them, make a point of keeping their products off comparison sites, preferring you to go to their websites. You have to spend another 15 minutes re-inputting your details, but unless you do you’ll never know if you could have bought cheaper.

In some areas, the lack of choice and clarity from comparison sites is transparent. Searching Confused.com for car breakdown cover, for instance, generated quotes from the AA but not the RAC or Green Flag. And one headline quote of about £28 almost doubled once I had declined the outrageous £40 “excess” payable on every call out.

Some comparison sites have a few other tricks up their sleeves, such as pre-selecting monthly instalment plans for insurance policies, which incur extra charges for you but more commission for them.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t use them, but do try more than one site and experiment with different settings: I found my car insurance quotes were identical irrespective of the voluntary excess I selected. Remember, too, that there is a cooling-off period during which you can renege on any purchase.