Motor insurers are making changes to their cover to take in recent developments such as third party liability and terrorism. Analyst Defaqto compares products from leading personal lines providers across most distribution channels
Defaqto found that May, June and July were busy periods of change in the personal insurance marketplace. In particular providers seem to have been feverishly fine tuning their private motor offerings.
They now reflect customers' increasing tendency to want foreign use cover, the more sophisticated in-car electronic equipment available and the effect the reinsurers are having on the market.
We have looked at a sample of the products that have recently changed, comparing products across most distribution channels.
To examine how any changes have impacted on the policies overall position in relation to some of the best products in the market an analysis has been carried out over a wide range of products on the Aequos database.
Finally the providers who excel in their motor product have been examined over their home insurance products.
Private motor insurance
Product changes over the last few months have been dominated by the restriction in the third party property liability limit down to, on average, £20m - almost certainly a repercussion of reinsurers' reaction to the Selby rail crash.
Another feature of recent changes is that of foreign use. The motoring public has seized the opportunity to venture across the channel on to foreign roads, encouraged by the savings that can be had on their favourite indulgences.
Finally the development of more and more sophisticated in-car electronic equipment has fuelled the need for insurers to react by clarifying their policies' definition of in-car audio equipment.
Changes
All the companies examined reduced their third party liability limit down to £20m. In addition, they made the following changes:
Wider comparison
Motor insurance across all distribution channels was analysed to determine if any of the newly-amended policies would feature among the better products in the wider market.
Coming out top on the criteria chosen are the Saga and NFU Mutual motor products. The changes made to the Zurich Car Solutions product have cemented their position among the better products available.
Home policies from motor providers
For a provider to confidently cross-sell their personal lines products and maintain the perception of quality it is important to offer competitive home and motor policies.
For those providers highlighted in the above motor market comparison, we analysed their home insurance offerings.
Top of the crop comes Liverpool Victoria followed closely by the Saga product.
Liverpool Victoria key features:
Drawbacks
NOTES
Source: Defaqto
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