How To Get Low Rates
On Car Insurance Online

Free Comparison Quotes is the buzzword we see on endless commercials advertising various car insurance sites... from Erin at Esurance prancing around in her animated way, to the sportscaster spokesman telling us about the "side by side" quotes at progressive.com. In the end, getting real "side by side" accurate rates from various auto insurers isn't as easy as it once was... but first some background.

There really are just two types of auto insurance sites at the on the internet. The first type are sites owned by the insurance companies themselves... sites like esurance.com, unitrin, geico, AIG, progressive, state farm and others. These sites are trying to sell you a policy directly from their company. So, when you go to esurance, the quote you are getting is for a policy directly from them. Some sites, such as the progressive site claims to offer the ability to view quotes from their competitors as well. First, we doubt that what they are showing from their competitors are truly the other companies cheapest rate. Second, the steps to get progressive to actually show the competitor's quotes takes a long time and many steps. Most visitors aren't going to go to the hassle.

The second type of site is what we call "Lead Broker" sites. These include very popular, but less advertised names like hometownquotes.com, insureme.com, insweb.com, insurance.com and others. These sites match you with various participating agents and companies to provide you with the best rates. With lead brokers, there is a little less instant gratification because your information is forwarded to the selected companies who then prepare a quote and contact you via phone or email. There is slightly more solicitation with these sites because the companies and agents aren't under the direct control of the site. While we have experienced a few follow-up calls following a quote request, sticking with the above sites doesn't expose you to the degree of solicitation you might find on some less respected sites.

So, bottom-line... how should you go about getting the lowest rate on an online car insurance quote? Our suggestion is to submit your information to two of the above companies and two of the lead brokers. As for the companies, we think esurance should be one of the choices because they seem to quite typically have the lowest rates... but also less historical trust being a newer player in the auto insurance market. Along with them, you should take your pick of whichever remaining site you feel most comfortable with. We have found rates fairly similar between the rest. As for "lead broker" sites, we suggest hometownquotes.com and insurance com. Hometown quotes has about 1,400 agents in the network and typically matches you to 3 local agents and 2 national companies. As for Insurance com, we find that they are one of the few remaining sites offering instant, on-screen compairison quotes and rates. This gives you a good starting point from which to measure the rest.

We are confident that if you follow these simple steps and submit to 4 sites using the above strategy that you will, in fact, save money on car insurance and get a lower rate. It is rare (less than 10%) in our experience for this method not to result in substantial savings.