Visit GoCompare.com >>Name: GoCompare.com Insurance No. of Reviews: 1
Launched as recently as November 2006. Gocompare.com reckons it prepared 11.6 million car insurance quotations in its first two years and was turning out one million a month by the end of 2008. Its cheapest quote was £60.90 for a 52-year old man driving an Austin A35 while its most expensive was £8998.34 for an 18-year old with a Mercedes C 180K SE. There's no indication whether either of these were accepted.
The comparison service was started by chief executive Hayley Parsons, who has form in the business having been the co-founder of Confused.com. It is based in Newport, Gwent, and grew quickly, being named 'One To Watch' in the 2008 Fast Growth Business Awards, organised by Crimson Business in conjunction with Growing Business Magazine.
In fact, by the end of 2008, the position of number one comparison service for car insurance was being claimed as a result of independent research. This was based on it having more insurance brands available to search than any other website rather than on number of visits, quotes or actual business, which might be considered a better indication. Nevertheless, in May 2008, it did become the first comparison site to be invited to join the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA).
The reasons for the success of the service are largely put down to the different approach that it took, initially at least, compared to other sites. It does cover the same general categories as most of the rest: motor, travel, home, health, life, pet and business insurance, financial products, utilities, breakdown cover, travel arrangements and a number of less common insurance categories. It also compares prices across a range of providers although it probably claims to compare more than most - over 100 companies for car insurance, 50 for home insurance and 500 airlines for flights, although most people might be shocked to learn there are so many airlines. Brands continue to be added, with a record nine car insurers taken on in December 2008 alone.
The major area where it claims to be different is that it places more emphasis on product features rather than simply assessing them on price. It does, in fact, reckon to have set a bit of a trend here, forcing other comparison sites to take account of features when rating a product rather than just on price.
Great emphasis is placed on the five star rating system that allows customers to choose the insurance policy that's right for them. Having entered their details and received a list of products in price order, customers can then specify elements of cover that are essential to them. Policies are then re-sequenced to take account of suitability, with those that closely fit the bill being awarded five stars.
The site hasn't always had unqualified success, with it reported as being hit by Google penalties in January 2008 for flouting webmaster guidelines, allegedly due to paid links and reviews. This resulted in it dropping way down the Google lists when searching for 'Gocompare' or 'car insurance' and, according to Hitwise figures, resulted in an 87% traffic drop. Econsultancy reported a further penalty in April 2009, with the site again tumbling down the ratings. Peace seems to have been restored since then, with the site returning to its former position in the lists.
Of course, if it happens again you're pretty much covered with www.go-compare.com, www.gocompare.co.uk and www.go-compare.co.uk all redirecting you to the main site. Unusual for an insurer with such common word usage branding to have been able to grab all these major variations, but certainly great information for their users as it means they are less likely to be led astray by less scrupulous companies. We didn't delve in to the spelling variants this time as the two words are pretty easy to spell ... right? ;)†
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