What to look out for

It's become a mad scramble to be in the top six companies and pealing the policy cover to the ground or giving enormous excess' is seen as the way to get into the frame.

Another worry is when the companies/intermediaries do not give you their prices to pay on instalments or their combined excess' (compulsory excess plus voluntary excess). This normally means that the APR is staggeringly high and the excess is well above the one requested on the quote.

It really is up to the various price comparison services to control this. Why are these companies allowed to do this?

The problem is that the price comparison services themselves want to show as big a contingent as possible on their site and maybe even get a better commission from some of the companies/brokers that use their site.

It's noticeable that E Sure, Admiral and their associated companies have not got involved in this, although you have to call Admiral to arrange instalments and the cost is way higher than paying up front.

The AA have been involved in the high excess game for sometime and some of the obscure intermediaries with all sorts of weird and wonderful trading names get up to all sorts of tricks to attract a phone call or site visit.

The Swift Cover site is very tricky when you click on from a price comparison site and it is difficult to know exactly what you are buying and how much you are paying for it. It's obviously been designed to confuse the less well educated internet users and Swift Cover will undoubtedly benefit from this.

The problem from the point of view of the motoring public is that they might click on to the first couple or three sites and decide that the whole business is a trick and not go further down the list to the more honest and straightforward sites.

My advice is, where possible, stick to the Esure, Admiral, Zurich, Liverpool Victoria's and Endsleigh's of this world who sell on the price comparison sites in a straightforward and honest way.

Avoid the Swinton, Kwik Fit, Swift Cover and obscure names to avoid the deliberate confusion caused by the mad scramble.

Some companies are charging administration fees of up to £75 a time. This is the equivalent of Barclays Bank charging you £75 fee for a bounced cheque etc. You need to remember that the intermediary pockets the whole of that £75 + 15% of any actual additional premium imposed by the insurance company they've placed you with.

£25+ is quite common, with some companies charging upto £35 for legal protection policies. You cannot call a company/intermediary without them trying to sell you an add on like breakdown with 'special offers' that are not very special at all. It's all a bit of a **** take as they keep you on a high tariff phone call.