While the rise of price comparison sites have pushed buyers to large companies and online, there are still great deals to be had by approaching your local insurance company.

How do you choose your insurer?

Whether you want to arrange home or motor insurance, some decisions may be quite obvious. For example, you might choose to:

• identify just what cover you need to safeguard your home or protect your car;

• ask friends or colleagues whether they are able to recommend a particular insurer;

• shop around online to see what is being offered by different insurers;

• consider what kinds of policy appropriately meet your insurance needs and requirements;

• shop around for policies that seem to offer the best value for money; and

• last but not least, base your decision on the cost of the cover you are buying.

The local option

What you might not have considered are the benefits you might enjoy and savings you may make by buying from your local insurance company.

Here at GSI Insurance, for instance, we are Whitstable based insurance brokers who offer valuable discounts on home and motor insurance for local people living in the surrounding area of Kent.

Taking advantage of local insurance brokers is not just a question of picking up any special discounts – valuable as these are likely to be. There are additional benefits in arranging your insurance through a local broker:

• a local broker, for instance, is likely to have a particular knowledge of the surrounding area and the general insurance needs and requirements of that population;

• being able to advise and recommend on the scope and extent of cover you are likely to need may be one of the valuable aspects of the service provided by your local broker;

• a broker is also well placed to scour the whole of the very diverse and competitive insurance market for those products likely to meet your needs and requirements;

• with a local broker it is typically easy and straight forward to establish a genuinely personal level of service and a relationship that makes it easy to call and discuss your insurance needs – certainly a more personal service than you are likely to receive directly from the insurer or through a call centre manned by anonymous and impersonal agents;

• if the time comes when you need to make a claim on your insurance policy, you are likely to find that the knowledge and expertise of your local broker is a source of assistance in completing the claim in way that secures the most favourable settlement;

• if you want to find a broker operating locally in your area, the British Insurance Brokers’ Association maintains a website with the facility for searching what you need.

There may be a host of considerations helping you to choose your home or motor insurance – and many of these may apply to a range of different goods and services you may buy. In the case of insurance, however, you may find that a local broker is able to offer a type and level of service it is difficult to find elsewhere – and might also offer special discounts to residents of the area, too.