Throwback Thursday: Motor insurer lambasts shopping around

24 June 1971: Save a few pence

British Life Reliance’s chairman Norman Blake complained about consumers trying to save cash on their motor insurance at the provider’s 1971 AGM.

Blake said: “Too many motorists are still changing from one company to another at each renewal date in an attempt to save a few pence.

“Yet this constant changing is expensive and wasteful to the insurance companies and only results in increased cost to the policyholder.”

He added brokers could help curb the trend by taking a more enlightened and long-term view when advising their clients.

What would he have made of price comparison websites and the Financial Conduct Authority’s General Insurance Pricing Practices rules, introduced in January 2022 to stop insurers from charging existing home and motor insurance customers higher renewal prices than they would charge new customers?

This practice, known as “price walking”, often resulted in a “loyalty penalty” where long-term customers paid more over time for the same policy.

The rules aimed to increase fairness and transparency in the general insurance market by ensuring renewing customers could not be charged more than new customers for the equivalent policy.