The great housing puzzle

The personal household market is growing ever closer to the personal motor model with customers making greater use of aggregator websites. Emmanuel Kenning explores how brokers can differentiate themselves.

At the start of the 1980s, brokers were responsible for placing around 80% of insurance household premiums. How times have changed. First, during the housebuyer boom under successive Thatcher governments, building societies in particular increased their market share at the expense of brokers. Then, on 2 April 1985, the seeds were sown for the household insurance market to shift fundamentally: Direct Line entered the UK personal motor vehicle market, offering telephone sales.

Two years later, it