Aggregators
Admiral: no sacred cows
Admiral has admitted there are "no sacred cows" among its burgeoning international operation, but that it remains committed to the loss making insurance businesses for now.
Admiral's international arm contributes £47m as profit jumps 7%
It added its customer numbers were up 19% to 2.08 million (2008: 1.75m), profit from UK car insurance was up 15% to £207m (2008: £180m).
Go Compare sees upsurge in quotes
Comparison site attributes marketing campaign to 20% increase in customer numbers.
Interview - Jeremy Fawcett: Changing the game
Insurers must avoid knee-jerk reactions to the rapidly changing world of social media, warns Jeremy Fawcett. Despite its escalating influence, brands should look twice before leaping, he tells Jonathan Swift.
Allianz mulls online-only plan for direct personal business
Allianz Insurance is considering remodelling its Cornhill Direct business into an online- only provider.
Moneysupermarket sees insurance transactions fall 14% in 2008
However, insurance made up 55% of the revenue (£75.7m), compared to 44% in 2008 despite a slight drop from £77.7m that year.
Car quote index shows rise
Confused and EMB have launched a quarterly car insurance price index that shows the average cost of the cheapest quote rose by 12.7% in 2009.
Confused index shows 12.7% rise in 2009
Confused and EMB have launched a new quarterly car insurance price index.
Autonet to collaborate with aggregator Money Expert
Autonet Insurance Group has teamed up with comparison website Money Expert to provide van insurance solutions to its users.
Go Compare strikes web deal
Price comparison site Go Compare is using Gomez to provide web performance monitoring solutions to support the performance and availability of its website.
Barbon signs £1m SSP deal
SSP has signed a £1m deal with Barbon for it to become the software provider for the broker's new personal lines venture Avenue Insurance Services.
Money Supermarket relaunches motor site
Price comparison website Money Supermarket is due to unveil its new motor insurance comparison site today. It marks the first major overhaul of its offering since it entered the sector in 2003.
Admiral offers 'Clarity' to Italian market
Admiral Group has launched a price comparison site in Italy under the name of Chiarezza.it, meaning 'clarity'.
View from the Top: The money-go-round
I've had a go, on the back of a large envelope, at breaking down where the money goes that Mr Customer spends on his motor insurance. Just what happens to a typical £400 premium?
Self-service breifing: Insurers feline the 'meerkat effect'
Insurance customers have changed from behaving like dogs to cats, and are now turning into meerkats as a result of social networking and other technologies.
Self-service briefing: Comparison sites have no loyalty claims survey
Price comparison sites are failing to build up significant brand loyalty, given that many online shoppers continue to check more than one site before buying insurance. And, in some cases, they may even phone an insurer selected direct — in the belief…
Go Compare halves losses as profitability aim beckons
Go Compare's chief executive Hayley Parsons has insisted that the aggregator is on course to make a profit for the first time since launching as a start-up in November 2006.
Axa joins Confused panel
Axa Direct has been named on the motor insurance panel for price comparison website Confused.
Interview - Stephen Lewis, Zurich: Making an entrance
Stephen Lewis has returned to the UK insurance market after eight years to take the position of chief executive of Zurich general insurance. Mairi MacDonald talks to him about his plans for the business.
Durham residents most likely to drive into lampposts
Research by Elephant outlines unusual UK road accident
Post Magazine 21 January 2010
This week's issue includes a look at the latest initiatives in voice stress analysis and the battle to combat fraud, the Jackson Report, the commercial lines aggregator market and all the latest news and views from the UK general insurance market.
Commercial aggregators: Moving targets
Aggregators have gradually exerted a stranglehold on personal lines insurance distribution that only the most powerful marketing budgets can now compete with. Ralph Savage investigates the potential for aggregators to shift their gaze towards commercial…
News analysis - aggregators: Back to black?
The past three months have finally seen private motor prices increase en masse. Tom Cooper analyses this and its potential for a return to market profit.
View from the top: The changing focus of service delivery
Over the last year or so, while the focus has been on the credit crunch, a quiet revolution has been taking place in the way the insurance industry delivers its service. Modern service delivery is increasingly reliant on (and influenced by) the…