The State of Car Insurance Form UX: Who’s Leading the Pack?

Which is the best motor insurance form in the UK?

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Filling out a car insurance form is no-one’s favourite task. Yet, these forms play a critical role in converting visitors into customers for insurers. To shine a light on how these forms stack up in terms of user experience, Zuko Analytics has audited and ranked 27 UK car insurance forms based on 42 elements related to user friendliness. The results? A mix of user-friendly innovation, glaring missteps, and plenty of room for improvement.

Here’s a sneak peek into our findings. If you want the full details, including detailed analysis on optimizing the key questions on insurance forms, you’ll need to download the complete report.

Download the car insurance form market report

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The Long Road to a Quote

On average, users face 40 questions before receiving a quote, making these forms some of the lengthiest in online user journeys. While this is a slight improvement over past years (last time we ran a similar exercise it was 57), it’s still a daunting task for users.

Not all forms are created equal, though:

• Shortest Form: By Miles stands out with an ultra-efficient 7 question process.
• Longest Forms: AXA and Rias, at 48 questions each, take the crown for length, testing users’ patience and persistence.

With aggregators offering quotes from multiple providers for similar effort, insurers relying on long forms are at a competitive disadvantage.

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What Makes a Form Shine?

Our audit evaluated forms based on three key criteria:

1. Number of questions needed to get a quote.
2. Presence of positive UX elements (e.g., live validation, intuitive dropdowns, helpful microcopy).
3. Avoidance of negative UX factors (e.g., unnecessary fields, hidden instructions, or CAPTCHA reliance).

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Key Highlights:

• Positive Trends: All forms included car and address lookups, which streamline input and reduce friction. Many also ensured error messages appeared next to the relevant field, minimizing user confusion. There were also heartening patterns for accessibility with most forms delivering the minimum pixel sizes for text and checkboxes / radio buttons.
• Room for Improvement: Half the forms could easily boost their scores by optimizing elements like date formats, searchable dropdowns, and mobile-friendly field types where they are currently falling down.
• Avoidable Pitfalls: 93% of forms included the unpopular job details question, often requiring users to enter both their title and industry, a consistent source of frustration as some customers are paranoid that if they get this answer “wrong” any future claim will be rejected.

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The Best and Worst Performers

Winner: By Miles

By Miles took the crown by combining brevity with smart UX design. Their standout features include a 7 question form and a preemptive mileage calculator that estimates mileage using live data. While it’s true that more information is required post-quote, this quick approach respects users’ time and keeps them engaged.

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Runners-Up: LV, Saga, and Budget

These forms proved that even longer processes can be relatively user-friendly. They excelled by:

• Minimizing negative UX factors.
• Incorporating live validation, clear microcopy, and well-structured fields.
• Keeping users informed and reassured throughout the journey by using microcopy.

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Bottom of the Table: Go Girl

Go Girl finished last due to a mix of poor design choices, such as a fiddly date-of-birth picker and an awkward slider for setting excess levels.

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Joining them in the relegation zone were John Lewis, with confusing and unconventional patterns (like radio buttons that mean the opposite of what they seem), and AXA, which combined the longest form with fundamental usability errors.

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Missed Opportunities

Despite some bright spots, many insurers are still falling short in key areas:

• Hidden Instructions: Copy hidden behind icons remains a common issue, reducing clarity and usability.
• Mandatory Account Creation: Some insurers, like Admiral, wait until users have completed over 45 questions before springing a compulsory account setup step. This late-stage hurdle is a prime example of thinking about company wants before the users’ needs  and ultimately delivering poor UX.
• Lack of Save-and-Resume: Only 7% of forms allowed users to save their progress, a surprising omission given the length of these forms.

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What Can Insurers Learn?

The report underscores one key lesson: length alone doesn’t define a form’s success. Insurers who focus on optimizing individual elements, reducing unnecessary fields, and putting the user first will see better engagement and higher conversions.

Want to know more? Download the full report to explore the detailed rankings, key recommendations, and get actionable insights that can help transform your forms from a customer pain point to a competitive advantage.

Download the Car Insurance Market Report

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