Motor insurance switching rate rises to 61%

Motor insurance had the highest switching rate of any financial product over the last three years, at 61%, according to the Financial Conduct Authority's Financial Lives 2024 survey, published on 16 May 2025¹. That is up nine percentage points from 52% in 2022¹.

The survey also recorded a rise in problems reported by insurance policyholders. Sixteen per cent of policyholders said they had experienced problems, up from 12% in 2022, which the FCA attributes mainly to a higher number of policyholders saying their policy cost more than expected¹.

The findings come from a survey covering nearly 1,300 questions, with fieldwork carried out between 5 February 2024 and 16 June 2024¹. A total of 17,950 adults took part, with just under 45% completing the survey in May 2024, more than in any other month¹.

The same survey reported that 13.1 million adults had low financial resilience in May 2024, 24% of all UK adults, which the FCA says is not statistically different from May 2022, when the figure was 24% and 12.9 million¹. The number of adults holding a current account rose to 52.5 million, up from 50.8 million in 2022, while the unbanked population fell to 0.9 million from 1.1 million¹. The FCA also reported that 26.4 million adults had characteristics of vulnerability in May 2024, 49% of all UK adults, a decrease of 0.9 million since May 2022, when the figure was 52% and 27.3 million¹.

Why it matters for households

The switching figure is a measure of how many people moved provider, not of whether they saved money by doing so. The survey does not report what households paid before or after switching, so the effect on individual premiums is not set out in the findings¹.

The rise in policyholders reporting problems, driven mainly by policies costing more than expected, sits alongside the switching data. For households holding insurance policies, the survey indicates that a larger share encountered an unexpected cost in 2024 than in 2022¹. How premiums are set, including the effect of Insurance Premium Tax, is covered in the guide to how insurance premiums are worked out.

The resilience and vulnerability figures describe the wider financial position of UK adults at May 2024 rather than the position of motor insurance customers specifically. Low financial resilience was unchanged on a statistically significant basis from 2022, while the number of adults with characteristics of vulnerability fell¹.

What happens next

The FCA says it will make the 2024 survey data available through GeoDS by September 2025¹. No further publication date for analysis of the motor insurance switching figures has been reported¹.