AAP
Australians miss out on $750 million a year by failing to shop around for insurance, new research claims.
Australia was "well behind" the UK in finding the best value insurance, spending about a third more on annual deals, according to comparison website iSelect.
Households with life, health or car insurance can save an average of $551 each per year, researchers said.
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In the UK, consumers were almost three times more likely than Australians to use comparison shopping websites to purchase car insurance and twice as likely to compare when purchasing health insurance.
While eight in 10 Australians said they wanted a better deal on their insurance, a high level of inertia existed among households when it came to insurance, researchers said.
Almost half of Australians with car insurance had only a rough idea of what their policy included (49 per cent), with health and life insurance holders showing similar apathy (43 per cent and 48 per cent respectively).
Financial planner Justine Davies said the figures were alarming.
"With interest rates on the rise and our bills going up and up every week, this is one area where there is potential to make significant savings by shopping around," she said.
"It's vital we become more active and review our insurance whenever we have a significant life change, or annually for car insurance."
www.iSelect.com.au's research was based on an online survey this month by Stollznow Research, which interviewed 1,000 Australian and 1,000 UK residents aged 18-60 years.
© 2010 AAP
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Shop around, how hard is it to remember? To me at least it never feels like a chore as I know it is going to save me a lot of money in the long run. It’s also possible to negotiate with some and say “Well, there policy pays this/charges this” etc and get some competition going to get an even better rate. Trust me it works, even in high street electrical stores, never mind on life insurance policies.
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