LONDON, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Britain's financial watchdog isinvestigating whether people are being duped into buyinginappropriate insurance policies by price-comparison websites.
Sites such as Gocompare.com, part-owned by insurer Esure, and Moneysupermarket.com have come todominate personal finance in Britain.
Though the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) supports theconcept behind such websites, it said on Monday that it wants tobe sure the rapid growth in their popularity "has not come atthe expense of transparency and fairness" and it has launched areview of 14 websites and some insurers, representing 90 percentof the market.
"We want to get to a place where consumers that use thesesites buy with the confidence knowing that they have all therelevant facts," Clive Adamson, the FCA's director ofsupervision said.
The regulator said its concerns centre on an "expectationgap", whereby people buy policies because the site suggests theyare the best value for money only to discover when making aclaim that the cover was not as comprehensive as they hadthought.
"We've all used a price-comparison website, so we know howsimple they make buying motor, travel or home insurance. Wedon't want to lose that convenience," Adamson said.
"But we do need to ask the question, does cheapest equalbest?"
The review will focus on the most popular insurance productsbought through price-comparison sites, namely motor, travel andhome insurance.