Comparing the comparers

Comparing the comparers

I am not surprised by today's Which? report into price comparison sites. I once spent several gruelling hours trawling through several such sites entering largely fictitious, but identical details and coming up with very different quotes to research an article on a similar subject.

I've just relived the experience on a thankfully smaller scale. As far as the questions would allow - the sites don't all ask the same things or give the same options - I entered all the same information to get insurance quotes from Confused.com, moneysupermarket.com and gocompare.com for a five-year-old Citroen Picasso.

The results? The cheapest deal Confused.com came back with was Sheila's Wheels at £207.72. Gocompare.com also came back with Sheila's Wheels, but with a quote of £211.96, while moneysupermarket.com's cheapest was Swiftcover at a considerably lower £165.60.

Bizarrely, Confused.com quoted £220.71 for Swiftcover, while gocompare.com said the same insurer would charge me £248. To use an irritating but relevant phrase, go figure.

Part of the problem is that all the sites ask for slightly different information, and they don't all have the same insurers on their books, so the list of quotes won't cover the same names. Which is why, while they are useful tools, relying on just one comparison site is not always going to bring you the best or most suitable product. Which is also why comparing the comparison sites is pretty difficult,.....continued below

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too.

And even if it does give you the cheapest insurance quote, credit card or loan, it may not be what you need - it is hard to display all the important details of a financial product within a simple table on a web page.

Do you use comparison sites? And if so, have you been flummoxed by them in the past, or have you given up on them all together?

guardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008