Direct Line – one of Britain’s biggest insurers – is to start selling its own-brand policies on price comparison websites for the first time in a major change of strategy.
The company has until now prided itself on dealing with customers directly rather than via portals such as Money Supermarket and Confused.
But yesterday chief executive Adam Winslow, who joined in March, said the policy must change and criticised previous bosses for not doing so earlier.
‘In the past five years, price comparison websites have continued to increase their share of new business from around 80 per cent to 90 per cent. To grow, winning on price comparison is critical,’ Winslow said.
U-turn: Direct Line is to start selling its own-brand policies on price comparison websites for the first time in a major change of strategy
He added Direct Line would launch ‘bespoke’ products on the sites but with ‘clear differentiation’ from those it continues to sell direct.
Other brands in the group – Churchill, Privilege, Darwin and By Miles – already use them.
The announcement was part of a major strategy as Direct Line reiterated plans to cut costs by £100million a year and said it would mean job cuts.
Winslow said it was becoming more digitally focused, meaning it would need a ‘different profile of resources and probably fewer resources’, including people.
He said that any announcement on job cuts would not be made without consulting staff. The company employs about 9,000 people.
Winslow is battling to turn around its fortunes after a turbulent 2023 when previous boss Penny James stepped down amid a profit warning.
And Direct Line has also had to fend off interest from Belgian insurer Ageas, rejecting a £3.1billion takeover bid this year.
Winslow said it had suffered from ‘historical underperformance’ and ‘lost its technical edge’. He said the business would now be ‘doing fewer things better’, focusing on home and commercial insurance and breakdown cover, while exiting or scaling back in other areas such as insurance partnerships with car makers.
Shares rose 3.3 per cent, or 6.3p, to 199.2p and are nearly 10 per cent up on the year to date.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said Direct Line was ‘finally caving in’ in what was ‘a major change for the business’. ‘
It’s become second nature for people to buy insurance via comparison sites, now often the first port of call for getting a quote,’ Mould said.
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