Bought insurance or got quotes on Friday 19 July? You may have missed out on the best deals due to the global IT outages – here's what to do
If you bought (or just got quotes for) car or home insurance on Friday 19 July, it's possible you didn't see some of the cheapest deals, as some insurers were unable to offer quotes due to widespread IT problems. It means you may have been offered fewer options and/or higher prices than normal. Here's what you need to know.
A software issue at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused what was reportedly one of the biggest IT outages in history last Friday. During the disruption, which has now largely subsided, millions of computers using Windows software were affected.
How insurers' systems were impacted
We asked four of the biggest price comparison websites about the impact of the IT issues.
Compare The Market and MoneySupermarket both confirmed that a "small number" of car and home insurance providers had been affected (they wouldn't tell us which ones). This led to fewer quotes being offered – though MoneySupermarket, which also powers the benchmark price you get in our Car Insurance Compare+ tool, told us it hadn't seen any "out of the ordinary" pricing fluctuations.
Compare The Market added that it has written to everyone who searched for quotes on Friday 19 July, letting them know that they may not have received quotes from as many insurers as they usually would, and recommending they complete a new comparison if they're still considering taking out a policy.
Gocompare told us it couldn't comment on how insurers were affected, while Confused.com didn't respond.
Financial analysis firm Consumer Intelligence has also reported "notable disruptions" in the UK car and home insurance sectors as a result of the IT outage. It said these issues contributed to a temporary spike in prices at 25 car insurance brands and 17 home insurance brands on Friday 19 July (it refused to specify which ones). In some cases these increases were substantial – for example, four home insurers saw increases of between 32% to 65% on average, with one seeing annual premiums rise on quotes being provided by a whopping £439.
Do another quick check now to see if you can save
If you bought (or got a quote for) car or home insurance on 19 July, it's worth a quick check to make sure you have the best possible price. For help with finding a new deal, try our Car Insurance Compare+ tool and see our Cheap home insurance guide.
We can't guarantee this will work – especially as insurance gets more expensive closer to the start date – but there's no harm in trying.
It's possible that other types of insurance – such as travel and pet – were also affected, though we don't have concrete info on this. Again, it may be worth grabbing new quotes just in case.
If you do find a cheaper quote, you should be able to cancel the existing policy under the standard 14-day cooling-off period you get with all insurance contracts.
You should get a refund from your existing provider of anything you paid upfront (though if the policy has started, the cost for the days of cover you've had will be deducted from it). Though do check if there's an admin fee to cancel – and weigh this up against any saving you're making from switching before you go ahead.