Today marks moneysupermarket.com’s tenth birthday.

Its launch introduced the concept of online price comparison to the UK and over the past decade we have helped around 500 million visitors save money. In 2009 alone, moneysupermarket.com’s customers saved themselves more than £400m by using the site to shop around and find the best deals.

Life before moneysupermarket.com

It’s easy to forget what life was like before comparison sites, but if you think renewing your car insurance is a chore now, remember what it was like when you had to phone insurers individually.

And how did you find the best savings account or credit card? It was a case of reading the newspaper finance sections or walking down the high street going from branch to branch. All pretty laborious and time consuming.

Now, however, it’s easy. If it’s car insurance you’re after, all you need to do is add your details once to moneysupermarket.com’s comparison tool and we’ll compare prices from more than 100 providers in a matter of minutes – imagine how long that would take if you were to contact them individually.

What’s more, a comparison site can compare quotes from brands only available via brokers, such as Royal & SunAlliance, as well as direct brands (which a broker wouldn’t be able to get a quote from) such as More Than and Churchill, and brokers themselves.

Ian Williams, moneysupermarket.com’s director of communications, said: “Shopping around for financial and travel products is quick and painless, and millions of our customers have benefited by using our site to switch and save money.

“From the start we helped consumers compare mortgages, credit cards and personal loans, now those products are just the tip of the iceberg. The moneysupermarket.com of 2009 has 27 channels and enables customer to search a vast range of products, including general insurance, savings and current accounts, utilities, mobiles and broadband, compare travel products through travelsupermarket.com, and more recently shopping and vouchers.

“Access to all of these products as well as content such as videos, user guides and articles is free to everyone who visits.”

How did we get here?

Let’s look back at 10 years of moneysupermarket.com:

8 December 1999 – Simon Nixon launches moneysupermarket.com offering a comparison of 4,000 mortgages, 400 credit cards and 400 personal loans.

2001- PAALeads launched – moneysupermarket.com’s leads business, which matches customers seeking mortgage and protection advice with financial advisers.

2003 – insuresupermarket launched, offering consumers the chance to compare a range of insurance quotes.

2004 – travelsupermarket.com launched, offering the chance to compare flight prices.

2006 – home services channels launched. Consumers can compare the gas electricity, broadband and mobile prices.

July 2007 – moneysupermarket.com is floated on the London Stock Exchange, making it the only listed comparison site in the UK.

2008 – moneysupermarket.com launches its own shopping channel

2009 – moneysupermarket.com expands into Germany www.marktvergleich.de

Feb 2009 - Simon Nixon moves up from chief executive to deputy chairman. Peter Plumb takes over as chief executive.

Nov 2009 – moneysupermarket.com’s new voucher channel makes it the largest voucher site in the UK (excluding porn!)

How do we get paid?

For information on how moneysupermarket.com makes money, read our article ‘How we make our money’.

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