A new study by Zego has revealed that the people of Blackburn are those making the most effort to seek out the cheapest car insurance online.
According to Google trends data, searches in the last 12 months for cheaper car insurance across the UK have exploded by 125%. ONS data has revealed that motor insurance exceeded CPI inflation at 43.1% compared to 8.7% in the last 12 months to May 2023.
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The study, conducted by taxi insurance specialists at Zego, analysed Google search data to establish which UK cities are making the most effort to make their car insurance cheaper. The research looked at Google searches from each city, using a list of 359 popular search terms people tend to use when looking to find more affordable car insurance.
Blackburn topped the list of UK cities seeking cheaper car insurance, with a monthly average of 6,564 searches per 100,000 residents. To put that into perspective, residents of Blackburn are searching for cheaper car insurance 36% more than those who live in Norwich, which ranked lower down but still tenth on the list.
The UK city in second place was Birmingham, with Brummies searching for cheaper insurance 6,269 times a month on average per 100,000 people. According to data.police.uk, the West Midlands Police were found to have had the highest vehicle crime rate in the whole of the UK in March, recording 113.6 incidents per 100,000 people, which may be contributing to high motor insurance costs in Birmingham.
In third place was Preston, with an average of 5,497 searches for cheaper car insurance each month per 100,000 people. Preston's top preferred searches for trying to lower car insurance costs included searches for dashcams or about installing black boxes.
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By GlobalDataInverness, which has the smallest population of the top 10, placed fourth on the list, with every 100,000 residents searching for cheaper car insurance 5,307 times a month on average.
Lincoln was ranked fifth for UK cities trying to make the most effort to reduce car insurance costs, with an average of 5,077 monthly searches per 100,000 people.
Hereford followed closely behind in sixth place by only 0.17% fewer searches, with 5,068 monthly searches per month per 100,000 residents.
Manchester was the seventh UK city searching for cheaper car insurance, with 5,009 searches per 1000,000 people. According to Clean Cities Campaign, 31% of privately owned cars in Manchester increased from 117,388 in 2012 to 154,109 in 2022.
Landing in eighth place was Burnley, with 4,701 searches a month on average per 100,000 people. Just behind that was Salford, with 4,645 searches on average per 100,000 residents.
Finally, rounding off the list in tenth place was Norwich, with 4,566 searches on average per 100,000 people.
At the other end of the scale, Newport, Wakefield and Derry are the top three UK cities the least seemingly concerned about trying to get cheaper car insurance.
CEO of Zego, Sten Saar, commenting on the findings, said: "This year has seen the price of motor insurance increase alongside inflation, so it doesn't come as a massive surprise that the people of the UK are making such a big effort to get the best possible deal they can for their insurance.”
