Spotlight On: Sainsbury's travel insurance discount

The deal

Sainsbury's Finance is offering a 25 per cent discount on travel insurance for Nectar card holders who apply for cover online.

The good points

A quarter off the cost of travel cover? That sounds a bargain. Even if you're not a Sainsbury's customer, you could still get a tenth off the cost of cover as long as you apply through the supermarket's website.

The bad points

Will the deal actually make the cover cheaper than elsewhere? The insurance is not actually provided by Sainsbury's but by a company called FirstAssist which specialises in offering travel and protection insurance that banks and others can label as their own.

Conclusion

Any discount offered on insurance is questionable. I'm not doubting that the cost of Sainsbury's cover could be a quarter cheaper if you take up this offer, but that doesn't mean it will make it cheaper than travel insurance from a rival company.

To make sure you don't pay over the odds for travel insurance, find out the cost of cover elsewhere through a comparison site such as travelsupermarket.com or confused.com.