Online Versus Offline Auto Insurance Quotes

By Rob Gormly in Auto Insurance on June 5th, 2008

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by Rob Gormly

In today’s hustle bustle world, everyone’s time is limited. When it’s time to renew your auto insurance, you might want to look at some competitive quotes, but where you can find the time. We’ve all seen the commercials on TV, and it looks like it would be easy to find a good car insurance quote.

Many companies such as Esurance.com and Geico.com have websites where you can shop for auto insurance quotes. Some of them are pretty sneaky, because they’ll even show you their competitor’s rates. That sounds good, but you better check those competitors yourself, just to be sure. Those competitive quotes might not be as accurate as they look at first. Of course, here we go again, this just takes more time.

If you decide to check with an insurance agent, you’ll probably be using the Internet anyway. After all, who uses the Yellow Pages anymore? When you look up a new insurance agent on the Internet, you are probably going to be required to fill out a form with a lot of personal information to try to give them a head start in finding what you need. It may turn out that this doesn’t save you much time at all.

Almost any agent you talk to will have to get the same information to give you a good quote. In most states, insurance companies use the same basic form, because it’s mandated by the state. That means, they’re all going to need the same information. Just be ready to answer the same questions over and over again. These are the same questions you have to answer on the Internet form, I mentioned earlier. In any case, it’s a good idea to have all the information handy beforehand to save you time. For an auto insurance quote. You’ll need your license number, vehicle identification number, registration and information about all the regular drivers. You’ll also need to know how many miles you commute to work every day.

At least getting started online is a pretty good idea. You can usually get a ballpark figure for your auto insurance quote. But if you want to bundle things together, like insuring several cars and your house, you need to talk to an agent. That may be an agent to you found on the Internet, but it’s pretty hard for most of us to sort out all the variables without professional help, when you move beyond pure auto insurance. Many people want automobile insurance, homeowners insurance, and an umbrella policy over everything. When you get to that stage, you need to be talking to one company, and probably one agent.

The question of whether to get auto insurance quotes online or offline depends totally upon your situation. In either case, you can save hundreds of dollars a year from a few hours of research.

About the Author:

Before making next year’s car insurance payment make sure you look at Rob Gormly’s excellent report on how to save 10% to 30% every year on your car insurance payment with the information your broker doesn’t want to tell you! Rob is a former insurance agent with an deep background in insurance and finance.