MediaAlpha review

It is a comparison site rather than an insurer, so it gathers quotes from several providers and sets them out together. The insurance arm covers auto, home and motorcycle. You pick a quote from the table, and the insurer named on it issues the policy and handles it from there.

The listings cover auto, home and motorcycle, and that is the full set on offer. Car and motorcycle policies, home cover, pet insurance and health plans sit in one place, with life, travel and gadget lines outside the mix.

The insurance arm is run by QuoteLab, LLC, based in the US. It publishes the listings and comparison tables rather than writing policies itself, so the contract, the claims process and the regulator sit with the insurer named on any quote you accept.

Support runs on email and help centre, so answers arrive by email or through the help centre rather than by phone. That suits anyone content to keep the exchange in writing and on record. Once a policy is live, day to day questions go to the insurer that issued it.

The site is open to 18+, so anyone below that age is turned away at the quote stage. That bites hardest on young drivers, who already meet the sharpest premiums in this market, and on anyone seeking cover in their own name early in life.

It depends on the insurer and the line of business. Across the insurance listings gathered here, the starting premium sits at a median of €7.95, with a lower quartile of €2.66 and an upper quartile of €26.75. Only a quote shows your own figure.

Monthly payment is standard in this corner of the market: 89% of the insurance listings offer it, against 11% that do not. Check both figures on the same quote, because many household budgets are set against the monthly number.

Insurers dominate: 41.7% of the providers are underwriting companies and 35.8% are brokers, with 19.5% being comparison sites like this one. A broker explains the market and passes the customer on, while an insurer underwrites the risk.