One of the growing trends within car insurance over the last 12 months has been the rise of temporary car insurance. As consumers become more demanding and expect more from service providers, niche products have been developed to satisfy user demand. Temporary car insurance to cover customers for 1 to 28 days is a good example of this, and searches for temporary car insurance increased by 70% during 2012.

Looking at the seasonality of searches for this niche type of insurance there are some very clear spikes throughout the year when online demand peaks. The five most popular weeks for temporary car insurance all corresponded with UK bank holiday weekends.

The peak of 2012 searches came in the week ending 2 June which not only corresponded with the spring bank holiday but was also immediately before the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee which boosted consumer demand. What this shows, is a clear correlation between bank holidays and a consumer need for temporary car insurance, which is useful for forecasting future demand. In 2013 key bank holiday dates fall on 29 March, 1 April, 6 & 27 May and 26 August. Further analysis of the key search days showed that the Friday before the bank holiday was the day when consumers were most likely to search for insurance.

Taking the analysis one step further, it’s possible to see the specialist websites receiving traffic from searches for temporary car insurance and then look at where in the UK demand is coming from for this insurance.

What emerges here is that temporary car insurance is very London centric. 1 in every 5 visits to a specialist temporary car insurance provider comes from a London Internet user, and Londoners are 50% more likely than the average consumer to visit these specialist websites. This makes sense as the cost of keeping a car in London is extremely high, and so borrowing a car and insuring it for a short time appeals to the London audience. This information allows insurers to be more precise in their targeting for new customers who demand these niche insurances.

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