You may have seen, in the UK, the Direct Line red telephone/mouse adverts recently. They are saying two things, firstly that they have been around for over 25 years now and secondly, that they do not advertise on price comparison sites.
The buying and selling of insurance products has been transformed over the past few decades because of three things. Firstly, more use of the telephone. Secondly, the internet and thirdly the huge development of processing and memory power of computers.
This has all led to the ability of you or I to get, for example, a commercial insurance quote for a business, confirmed in writing (via email) within half an hour.
But there is one thing that has not changed, the middlemen. We are a broker and we do not hide the fact that we earn a commission from the insurers for placing your cover with them. If you save money by doing that, then we are all happy.
The reason there is a backlash against the sites that “offer” to compare business insurance are that they are not cheap to run. They have mind boggling advertising and website budgets. For this reason they insist on significant double digit percentage commissions. In reality though, they may not really be comparing the whole market as they claim to.
So, you may not be getting the best quote, as the insurers they work with may just be the ones that are naive enough to pay astronomical commission.
In answer to the post question, yes you should use a comparison service. But only by speaking, over the phone, to an online business insurance broker. Let them do the comparison for you and I can guarantee, you will get a much better service this way in the event of a claim.