Methodology
How we score.
Six axes, computed from facts pulled live from each provider's own pages. Same formula for every provider. No editorial nudging.
The six audience axes
Every provider page shows these scores. The recommendation engine uses them to rank matches against your quiz answers.
Value
Balance of feature count against price. High score = you get a lot of cover for the money.
Family
Home Start + National Recovery + Onward Travel + personal cover, with a bonus for unlimited callouts.
EV
From the categorical EV level: confirmed EV breakdown messaging, mobile charging, dedicated EV pages.
Older car
Unlimited callouts boost it; a stated vehicle-age cap drops it sharply.
Budget
Pure cheapness. 100 = cheapest in the current run, 0 = priciest.
Premium
Feature breadth + Defaqto 5-star + Onward Travel + underwriter strength.
What the quiz reads
Seven questions. Each one nudges specific axes:
- Vehicle type. Influences EV / older-car weighting.
- Vehicle age. Older cars need unlimited callouts, skip age-capped providers.
- Driving frequency. More miles → recovery matters more.
- Trip type. Long motorway → Onward Travel + National Recovery; local → Roadside is enough.
- Home Start preference. Direct yes/no/uncertain question.
- Long-distance trips. Drives the National Recovery threshold.
- Priority. Cheapest / good value / strong cover / hassle-free.
How prices flow in
Every morning a scraper pulls each provider's public entry price from their own page. If a provider is quote-led with no public list price (Green Flag, Saga), the price field stays empty rather than guessing — and the budget score uses the annual figure where available.
Today's tracked price is what shows on each provider card, dated. Yesterday's price (if it changed) appears as the delta on /compare-breakdown-cover.
Why the scores might shift
They're percentile-based on the current run. If a provider cuts price overnight, their Budget score goes up and everyone else's drops slightly. If a new provider with broad features joins the pool, the Premium score baseline shifts. Yesterday's 80 is not the same as today's 80 in absolute terms — it's the same percentile rank.
What's *not* in the formula
- Commission. We treat every provider in the database the same way, with or without an affiliate deal.
- Brand recognition. AA and RAC don't get a popularity boost.
- User reviews or Trustpilot. We surface Google review counts where available but they don't influence the score.
- Editorial preference. There is no per-provider hand-tuning. The formula is the formula.
Provider universe
10providers today. We add new ones as we set up affiliate relationships. Halfords, Aviva, and a handful of others we'd like to add aren't crawled yet — once they are, they get the same six-axis scoring as everyone else.
Want to inspect a claim?
Every provider page shows the source URLs the crawler pulled. Distinctive angles (Defaqto 5-star, "underwritten by LV=", etc.) are footnoted with the matched sentence and source URL. If something looks wrong, email hello@coverkit.co.uk and we'll look.