Compare Direct Line Car Insurance: an entrepreneurial company

http://www.directline.com/

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that if there is a reason for the way car insurance is today, it’s probably Direct Line. When this company was founded in 1985, it changed everything by using ever-improving communications technology to undercut, in one prescient swoop, traditional brokers and direct insurers alike. Among the advantages claimed by the company on its website are online discounts and the possibility of paying by installments. While it’s essential when taking out insurance with any provider to look carefully at the ‘small print’ and rely on your own judgment as well as theirs as to whether a policy is suitable or not, the fact that Direct Line is so big and long-established could be an advantage. But check out consumer sites/magazines such as Which? and the Motley Fool (www.fool.co.uk) to get a feel for what’s out there and what company would be suitable for you.

Direct Line’s founder, Peter Wood, is up there with the likes of Branson and Philip Green in terms of tireless entrepreneurship (in the 1990s he was, in Robin Cook’s famously-stated opinion, making an ‘obscene’ amount of money from Direct Line… although it’s only fair to note that the wages of MPs and Cabinet ministers have not always gone unchallenged themselves and are, unlike Wood’s, paid directly by us). He is also behind esure – one of the most popular of the new online insurance companies – and Privilege (with Michael Winner and Joanna Lumley respectively in the adverts, which are almost as annoyingly memorable as Direct Line’s own phone on wheels thing).
Direct Line counter insurance fraud

Direct Line blazed another, smaller trail in 2000. Car insurance fraud is one of the more – if by no means the only – enervating imports we have had from the US in recent years. And we all pay for it: it could add as much as 10% to your premium. It also goes down very badly with insurance companies, who aren’t keen on paying out money at the best of times, let alone millions per year to people who really don’t deserve it. Direct Line was among the first to acknowledge the extent of the problem and do something about it, employing an application technique which is designed to spot fake identities, addresses, and other dodgy fraudster dealing. Other companies have adopted similar systems. It can’t always work or there’d be no car fraud at all, but the concept renders the personal questioning you get when you are looking for a quote more palatable – reassuring, even. For more information about Direct Line check the website at www.directline.com.

 

 

 

 

© AskFinancially.com 2008

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