Finding the Right Car Insurance Company for You

Over the years, there have been many industries and professions that, for one reason or another, have managed to incur the disdain of the very public to which they have plied their respective wares.

It hasn’t been altogether surprising for example that estate agents and lawyers have been accused of a certain amount of financial cynicism. Bookmakers and car dealers have never really been regarded as pillars of virtue, and as for the latter, their predecessor the horse trader was automatically considered to be a thief by any other name.

History and social change basically services its own needs and in doing so, drives its own economy and it has therefore been a little surprising to discover that the simple institution of the car insurance company is coming increasingly under fire and finding itself at times accused of ‘sharp practice’ and price rigging.

It is also interesting to consider whether or not this really fair? After all, the traditional UK car insurance company has generally been perceived, if not necessarily as a beacon of charity, as at the very least an indispensable and ethical addition to modern urban civilisation. Nobody likes the legally enforceable imposition of mandatory payment for anything, there are some things however, for which we can generally understand and accept inevitability.

Yet nowadays, the guns are increasingly being pointed at that very car insurance company we were once so happy to tolerate, and one occasionally has to wonder why this is.

It is true that the cost of UK car insurance cover has spiralled, and disproportionately so, over the past decade. It is equally true that the odd car insurance company has been accused of excessive profiteering within this same market, but no more so than the odd food retailer, or (particularly so) the odd utility company.

Yet the public seems to be a little loathed to examine itself on a number of fronts here. An obvious one is a culture problem and one that the government itself has to tackle.

Where there’s blame there’s a claim – ring any bells with anybody? It ought to because the role of our traditional UK car insurance company has never been, and was never intended to be the paying out of compensation claims for dubious injuries, the circumstances of which in many cases are evidentially questionable. The problem is that we, the public, have backed our traditional car insurance company up against a wall.

Fight the claim on a specific legal issue, then lose it and you open a huge floodgate. Simply pay the claim and it seems like the lesser of two evils, you still open a floodgate, albeit a smaller one, but one that still costs money to stem, and in the end somebody has to pay it.

Online car insurance comparison sites have seen the advent of such market competition that the quotes you receive for the policy you require are nowadays pretty transparent. Sure, there are variations in discounts, different limitations and conditions on extent of cover, but rates are pared down to surprisingly small margins these days, which brings us to another old maxim – you reap what you sow.