Car cover - Let's compare the brokers!

Quotes for car cover from various brokers: correct on 15/4/2025. Check company websites for up-to-date quotes

I have a confession to make…

I, Bill (Shop Around) Tyson recently accepted the car insurance quote offered by my current broker (Arachas).

Oh, the shame!

I usually use the opportunity of renewing my car cover to put a few brokers through their paces.

But I was pressed for time, my cover was about to expire and…well, dammit, aren’t brokers supposed to do the shopping around for you?

In fairness, the quote of €463 for fully comprehensive cover with all the usual ‘bells and whistles’ also seemed pretty good.

But could I have done better?

My consumer correspondent conscience has been bothering me about that ever since.

Comparison site Bonkers.ie now has a car insurance section I want to ‘test drive’ so I decided to see if I could have gotten a better deal from it and other brokers by taking the whole shopping around thing a step further.

Is it worth shopping around even for the ultimate ‘shoparounders’ themselves – i.e. brokers?

So let ‘the battle of the Brokers’ commence!

Arachas in fairness had come up with a pretty good quote at €465.

But can Bonkers beat them - and the big boys of online brokerage – Chill and 123?

It certainly talks a good game.

The site declares: “Our brand new car insurance platform is the only one in Ireland that allows you to compare car insurance quotes directly from leading insurers.

This, unlike traditional brokers, ensures you get the cheapest car insurance quote for any given policy.”

But can it really deliver the cheapest quote?

Shopping around for insurance brokers...

I punched in my details and retrieved my quotes.

For fully comprehensive cover, Bonkers’ cheapest quote is €480 from Aviva from what seemed a rather limited list.

123.ie are another big online brokerage. And they came back with a quote that almost matched Arachas at €466 for fully comprehensive cover, undercutting Bonkers.

Chill provided a whopping 33 quotes, including one of  €406 from AIG, which is the cheapest of the lot – with Ivernia close behind on €413.

Chill are also much cheaper if you have to spread out payments over a year instead of paying it all in one go.

I think this is what was nagging my conscience when I accepted the quote from Arachas.

At the back of my mind, I remember switching brokers – and getting a better deal in the process – several times in the past.

I saved money by going to Its4women but then after  a couple of years, they provided an unattractive quote from AIG.

I wasn’t impressed with that and tried Chill.ie who boast of having 14 insurers on their books and came up with a much better quote. But guess which insurer it was with? AIG!

Brokers vary not only by the number of insurers they deal with but also by the kind of deals they can wring out of them – usually by offering business scale. (Or maybe Its4women just noticed I was a man!)

I was happy with Chill.ie for a couple of years, thinking they can’t be beaten with 14 insurers on their books.

Actually, there are over 25 insurers in the market and they can – so I saved again by switching to Arachas.

And yet, here we are again with Chill undercutting them by €60.

The brokers all came up with competitive quotes, so if you’re stuck for time, it’s not the worst option to go with your broker’s offer. They also provide a very valuable service in alerting us in advance when our policy is coming up for renewal.

So it does pay to shop around – even for brokers!

Note:

My deal with Arachas dates from several months ago and may include details that differ from the latest quotes, so it is excluded from our table.

Bonkers is competitive but could do better

Bonkers’ foray into car insurance is a welcome addition to the market where drivers need all the help they can get. 

And our study shows Bonkers is quite competitive.

But it’s range of quotes is limited, the option of paying annually is quite pricey and it’s not as cheap as it seems to suggest.

I put these questions to spokesman Daragh Cassidy and he explained:

‘At the moment there are three insurers on our site: Aviva, AIG and Zurich,” explained Bonkers’ Daragh Cassidy.

“And we aim to include more over the coming year or two. So we claim you won't get cheaper elsewhere with these three. Though obviously a driver may be able to get a different deal if they went to another insurer like FBD or Allianz for example. And of course we'd encourage people to shop around as much as possible.”

OK that makes sense – if still a bit cheeky!

Daragh also suggests Bonkers.ie may be a good option for younger drivers who accept the much-talked-about device that monitors their driving.

“The AIG product we sell on Bonkers.ie is a telematics or “black box” policy that is aimed at younger drivers or those without a lot of driving experience. It’s not the standard product available on Chill (though we hope to be able to allow drivers sign up to this product on our site too over the coming months).”  

“If you're a young driver or new to Ireland with little driving experience here, choosing a telematics policy can help lower your premium. With this type of policy a telematics device or "black box" will be installed in your vehicle shortly after your insurance policy comes into force. The small device will track various aspects of your driving and provide detailed analytics on your driving behaviour to both you and your insurer.”

Daragh says there has never been a better time to shop around.

“While you could look like a slightly risky bet to one insurer, another might be more than happy to give you a better deal. Also, the ban on price walking means it's now much more difficult for an insurer to offer you a good deal to stay with them after the first year is up - making it even more important to compare the market,” he says. 

Car Insurance

Lots of things can impact how much you pay for car cover.

Which car you buy, how you drive it – and even how you choose to pay for insurance, can all affect your quote, says Dominic Lumsden, spokesperson for Peopl Insurance, who has these practical tips to help drivers lower insurance premiums:

1. Don’t buy an old Ferrari! Opt for small, low-powered vehicles in lower insurance groups. If possible, avoid purchasing a car that is over ten-years-old or that have been modified as these are generally more expensive to insure.

2. Add a Named Driver: Include an experienced driver on your policy (legitimately).

3. Increase Excess: Choose a higher voluntary excess if you can afford it.

4. Complete Driving Courses: Advanced courses may qualify for discounts.

5. Limit Mileage: Car insurers place a high value on insuring motorists with low mileage.

6. Improve Security: Add alarms or trackers to your car.

7. Drive safely and stay penalty point free: Having just three penalty points could push up a driver’s premium by about 10pc, while ten penalty points could see it double. Motorists could knock even more than €1,000 off their car insurance bill by keeping their driving licence penalty-point free.”