Nearly two-thirds of brokers polled by managing general agent (MGA) Prestige Underwriting say customers who come to them after a price comparison website (PCW) decline believe their home is uninsurable, so specialist brokers are meeting customers who have already concluded their property cannot be covered.
The 64% breaks down as 15% of brokers who said most such customers hold that belief, 11% who said around half do and 38% who said a minority do. Separately, 72% of the 98 brokers surveyed said they encounter customers with non-standard risks who report being declined or unable to obtain cover through PCWs, ChatGPT or other AI sources collectively. Prestige commissioned the survey from Context Skythorn, with fieldwork from April 27 to May 29 and from August 31 to October 2, 2026.
Brokers most often cited non-standard construction (63%), unoccupancy (60%), subsidence history (56%), flood risk or location (55%) and previous claims history (46%) as factors behind household PCW declines. Prestige noted that these are factors brokers cited, not measured decline rates for each property type. They are risks that specialist brokers and MGAs are used to assessing, but they can create barriers in highly standardised online quote journeys.
Prestige said the findings point to a customer journey problem: an unsuccessful search can be read as a verdict on the customer’s risk or property rather than the limits of one quote service. Alison Williams, managing director at Prestige, said: “For a customer, reaching the end of a quote journey without an offer can feel like being told their home cannot be insured.” She added that non-standard construction, unoccupancy or a subsidence history can need a more detailed underwriting conversation, and that an online journey that cannot accommodate them should explain its limits clearly. “A decline does not mean a customer is uninsurable,” she said. “We need quote journeys that give customers enough information to make their next decision with confidence.”
AI tools sit alongside PCWs in the survey, but Prestige grouped them together, so the findings do not show how often customers were turned away by an AI tool rather than a PCW. Aviva said in March that it was preparing to launch an app on ChatGPT giving initial quotes for its Signature home insurance product, which it sells directly. Users answer standard underwriting questions before receiving a quote and are then sent to Aviva’s website to complete the purchase. Aviva said it would assess how customers use the tool before considering wider applications.
More than eight in ten brokers polled (81%) do not believe PCWs are signposting customers to specialist brokers after declining them for non-standard risks. That sits against the BIBA and ABI Total Signposting Commitment, launched in January, a voluntary initiative covering personal lines that is meant to point customers who cannot obtain cover towards alternatives, including BIBA’s Find Insurance Service, which received around 430,000 enquiries in 2025.
In a September release from the survey, Prestige said 69% of brokers reported that customers almost never arrive with referral details from the provider that declined them. Only one in five (20%) had seen more referrals from those channels since the commitment launched.
Prestige said reviewing unsuccessful quote journeys should form part of industry work on consumer understanding and support under the Consumer Duty. It called on PCWs and their insurance partners to examine the wording, explanations and next steps they present when customers cannot obtain a quote.
