The expanded partnership between GoCompare, the smallest of the big four price comparison websites (PCWs), and insurance start-up weflip is a sign that the aggregators space is evolving, with players searching for a competitive edge.
The leading four PCWs are unrivalled within the aggregator market and are becoming increasingly strong across personal lines distribution as a whole.
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However, recent Competition and Markets Authority investigations and the emergence of modern, consumer-friendly, and alternative propositions could potentially threaten their dominance. GoCompare’s expansion of its partnership with weflip is aimed at modernising the space.
The aggregator announced in March 2019 that it was planning a £10m marketing push to expand the use of weflip, which it had acquired in October 2018. The startup searches for cheaper energy tariffs and automatically switches customer accounts. Investments in the product are expected throughout the year in order to expand it beyond the energy sector.
This could prove to be particularly successful, as the two main reasons consumers use price comparison sites are to save time and money, according to GlobalData’s 2018 UK General Insurance Survey, weflip’s proposition is designed to do both.
This follows the emerging trend of tweaking and modernising the existing price comparison model, which we covered in our piece on Honcho’s reverse-auction app in February. On its own, weflip provided little threat to the four established aggregators, but its alliance with GoCompare represents a serious attempt by the latter to differentiate itself from its competitors.
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By GlobalDataOur UK Aggregators 2019 report found that GoCompare has the smallest market share of the four leading comparison sites across all four personal lines products. Increasing the ease at which consumers can switch appears to be an effective way to increase its position. If this move does indeed give the company a competitive edge over its rivals, they are likely to follow suit by turning to innovation from insurtech start-ups as well.
