Compresensive car insurance cover has been driven up by 12.3%, or around £92, in the space of a year, taking the typical premium to £843, new research shows.

Third party, fire and theft customers fared even worse, suffering an annual 19.9% rise, equating to an increase of £192 over 12 months.

The biggest annual price hikes for comprehensive cover were in the North of England, according to the Confused.com/Towers Watson Car Insurance Price Index data, which uses more than four million quotes.

Bradford suffered a 27.5% year-on-year rise in the cost of average comprehensive cover, taking premiums to around £1,394, while Oldham fared even worse with a 27.9% year-on-year increase to an average premium of £1,437.

Scotland saw the lowest annual premium rises in the UK for comprehensive cover, with cover in Perth up just 0.3% on the year to an average £564. Kirkwall had a 0.8% rise to reach £620.

But despite the year-on-year hikes, the average price of a comprehensive car insurance policy fell by 1.6% during the third quarter of 2011 - the first quarterly decrease for more than three years.