Are You Confused?
Here is just a short resume of the deals from Confused.com
When you are looking to insure your car through Confused.com, there are a few things that you should keep an eye open for so that you get the right deal. The offers that are published for Car Insurance may not be as good as what you think, unless you read the small print. We have stripped the top Car Insurance websites, and found some pretty interesting reading – so here goes…
Confused.com offers work on the basis that they have checked information from customers who have signed up for new car insurance, so how do they know that 10% have saved over £188.85? The truth is that they don’t exactly know, because they only have the word of the customer to believe, so looking at it closer, maybe it should read: “according to our customer?”
Now, if we all believed what other people told us was truth, then we would not have to prove that the mileage on our car was correct before we advertised it, true?
Here is what Confused.com say on their website:
Between January-June 2010, 10% of car insurance customers, who gave a best alternative price, saved over £188.85. We also compare up to 84 providers – some of which have cash back deals. † Calculation based on buying trends and average saving of car insurance customers who provided a best alternative price and purchased car insurance through Confused.com between Jan.-June 2010.
Even More Confused Now?
All looks pretty straight forward, but it simply isn’t, so lets show you some basic maths and show you the truth.
- The point that they are making is that they only use the figures from those who told them the alternative car insurance cost. Which means, if you took every single person who insured a car through them, chances are the £188.85 saved by 10% of their customers, would actually be more like £18.89 saving per person.
- If they were only taking an average of their own figures it would be ok – but they are also taking into account something called buying trends, and an average of those people who “TOLD THEM” what the alternative cost would have been.
- So they may have had 100 customers who had saved money, but they haven’t mentioned the other 100,000 (hypothetical – probably far more) who haven’t told them if they saved or not.
- Mathematically, they are bending the truth in their favor to make it look a lot better than what it really is. Lets hope they don’t say you can do unlimited mileage on your policy, ‘based on fair usage?’
Funny part is that they have to hit a double figure on the percentage, otherwise it looks pretty grim. And they are not alone, because most if not all price comparison websites use the same methodology, just lucky for confused.com that they don’t use anything else to pad it out.
That being said, they are still one of the top three most competitive car insurance comparison sites in the UK – so they must be doing something right.
Our Opinion 4.79 / 5.00 – Still one of the cheapest places for Car Insurance, but must try better!