The best and worst car insurers

Find out which car insurance companies got top marks and those that failed to live up to expectations.

Ever wondered which company is the best for car insurance in the UK? And which you should avoid taking out a policy with?

Well Auto Express has put together a countdown of the best and worst car insurers in its latest Driver Power Survey that might steer you in the right direction.

Over 46,000 motorists were asked to judge car insurers and brokers on five areas: communication, speed of settling a claim, helpfulness, value for money and the overall service.

So which car insurer was voted top and which came bottom?

The best car insurer

NFU Mutual, originally set up by farmers for farmers, came top of the Drive Power Survey, retaining its 2012 ranking.

Missing out on the top spot was specialist insurer for organisations and trade unions LV= Frizzell which came second. Adelaide IAM Surety (3rd), Royal & Sun Alliance (4th) and SAGA (5th) followed.

NFU blew the competition out of the water and achieved a score of 89.09%, ticking the right boxes for great customer service and attentive staff.

Praise was directed at NFU’s efficiency when asked to provide information on a policy and when it came to sorting a claim.

The firm managed to achieve top marks in four out of the five judging categories, only performing less well in the 'value for money' section.

However, over 97% of those surveyed said they would renew their policy even though NFU did not necessarily deliver the cheapest car insurance quote.

The worst car insurer

At the other end of the scale, Diamond, which provides car insurance ‘shaped’ for women, finished last in the survey of 40 car insurers.

Swiftcover came second from bottom, followed by Highway (38th), Hastings Direct (37th), Chaucer (36th) and the AA (35th).

Failing to shine, Diamond scored badly across the board.

A number of motorists were disappointed by errors that appeared on policies and the time it took to get claims sorted.

One of those surveyed reported they had to wait an unforgiveable two years to get their claim resolved.

Hopefully Diamond will take the findings of the survey on board and improve for next year. Who knows, the firm could perform a turnaround like last year’s worst car insurer, Lloyds TSB did. The bank has risen from the ashes and moved 21 places up to 19th by improving every aspect of its service.

The cheapest price

For comparison, Auto Express also did a mystery shopping exercise to find the insurer with the lowest car insurance premiums.

Insurers were asked to quote for a 25-year-old sales manager driving a Ford Fiesta, a 40-year old publicity manager with a Vauxhall Insignia and a 55-year old dentist driving a BMW 530d.

esure delivered the cheapest quote for all three drivers. The 25-year-old received a quote of £601.32, the 40-year old got one for £217 and the 55 year old was offered a policy for £205.83.

But this result only highlights how basing your decision on price alone can be a bad idea. That's because esure was voted the 10th worst car insurer by the Driving Power Survey.

In contrast NFU Mutual, the top insurer from the survey was close to the bottom when it came to the price it could quote for each mystery shopper. But evidently the extra money spent buys a much better service.

Comparison tools, like Lovemoney's, make it easy to fall into the trap of chasing the cheapest quote. But you also need to spend some ime going over what the policy actually covers and what sort of service you can expect should you need to make a claim.

The full picture

Take a look and see where your insurer ranked in the Drive Power Survey, with the full list of 40 car insurers:

2013 rank	Insurance firm	Score (%)
1	NFU Mutual	89.09%
2	LV= Frizzell	88.27%
3	Adelaide IAM Surety	87.94%
4	Royal & Sun Alliance	85.01%
5	SAGA	83.03%
6	LV= Liverpool Victoria	82.95%
7	John Lewis	82.57%
8	RIAS	81.15%
9	Groupama	80.45%
10	Cooperative Insurance Service	80.18%
11	Ageas	79.75%
12	NatWest	79.73%
13	Nationwide	79.13%
14	M&S	78.59%
15	Sainsbury's	78.55%
16	Allianz	78.54%
17	Prudential	78.34%
18	Adrian Flux	78.18%
19	Lloyds TSB	77.97%
20	Direct Line	77.78%
21	Tesco	77.42%
22	Aviva	77.31%
23	Equity Red Star	77.19%
24	Swinton	76.95%
25	AXA	76.88%
26	Churchill	76.83%
27	Zurich Financial Services	76.70%
28	Privilege	76.39%
29	More Than	76.21%
30	Halifax	75.96%
31	Esure	75.94%
32	Insure	75.83%
33	Broker Direct	75.54%
34	Sheila's Wheels	75.42%
35	AA	75.42%
36	Chaucer	75.19%
37	Hastings Direct	75.15%
38	Highway	74.41%
39	Swiftcover	74.33%
40	Diamond	74.24%