Car Insurance Broker UK - Broker vs Company

The job of a car insurance broker is to identify his client's requirements, assess them, and then match them to the most competitive and appropriate insurance for their client. Ideally, any broker that you use will be an independent broker, who is not tied to an individual insurance company or car insurance provider. Some brokers are multi-tied, which is where they can introduce products to you form a panel of insurance providers. But this is still not truly independent. An independent car insurance broker will simply be acting on behalf of the customers and only in their best interests.

You may or may not have wondered where the word "broker" actually comes from. Apparently, it originated from the word "Brocher", which is a middle upper English word. A Brocher was actually a person, who job was to wait on Plymouth docks for the boats that used to bring sherry and port in from oversees. Then they would taste the wines and sherries as they were unloaded, so that they could advise the prospective buyers on whether they had a good quality product and what the price was they should pay. This is a principle which holds good in the insurance market. A good independent car insurance broker will know all about the different products on the market and find the right one for you at the right price.

Some people have a belief that car insurance brokers sell car insurance to you themselves, but this is not actually true. What they do is identify the car insurance that best suits the needs of each customer, and which is at the best price, and then they buy the insurance on the customer's behalf. A good independent car insurance broker will have as many, if not all the products on the car insurance products on the market at their fingertips, putting them in a position to offer the best product for each customer.

The difference between an insurance broker and an insurance company then is that the insurance broker has all of the market on offer, whilst an insurance company has only their own range of products on offer. Obviously, should you wish to get the cheapest insurance product for you, you are far more likely to do so through a broker with the wider range of products.

Be careful though, a car insurance broker is not just any intermediary who can get you car insurance. They have to be regulated by statute and registered, which is the only way that they are entitled to use the designation of "broker". Otherwise, if the intermediary is not registered and is not regulated apart from by industry codes of practice, then they are a "consultant".

 

 

 

 

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