Who is Who in the Car Insurance Industry

Online Car Insurance Confusion

Car insurance online is now so competitive that the average person must be totally bewildered by the sheer amount of information and websites that are available to give you a competitive quote.

How many different types of car insurance websites are there?

Basically there are two types of car insurance websites. These are:

The Merchant

The car insurance merchant is the provider of the car insurance policy (and the main point of contact) For example, Directline Insurance. Also you could consider a car insurance merchant to be the same as a high street broker.

The Affiliate

The affiliate is an independent website that advertises various merchants. The affiliate will earn a commission if the user is passed through to the merchant and takes out a policy with that merchant. This is called Cost Per Acquisition. Some affiliate website owners are very savvy and display various types of links through to various merchants making the most money possible from directing this traffic looking for car insurance. High traffic affiliate sites can make thousands of pounds per day. An example of a car insurance affiliate is moneysupermarket.com.

Who should I choose to find the best car insurance deal?

This is a very difficult question to answer as an affiliate simply supplies a gateway to many merchants. We can only say that it is easier for the customer to use a car insurance affiliate website to gain many quotes.

Some affiliate websites even refer other affiliate websites but ultimately the customer always arrives at the merchant website in order to get that all important car insurance quote.

View the UK Car Insurance Guide