In a world where insurance products all look the same and comparison platforms have made pricing more transparent than ever, conventional wisdom suggests that motor insurance has become a commodity.

The logic is simple: show customers a list of quotes and they will choose the cheapest one. And in many cases, that is exactly what happens. On comparison sites, around 80 per cent of policies are purchased from one of the three cheapest positions presented to customers. Price matters and often matters a lot.

Yet that statistic only tells half the story. At opposite ends of the pricing spectrum, some of the largest insurers in the market continue to attract significant volumes of business. Customers can clearly see the cheaper alternatives, yet many still choose the more expensive option.…