Save money on insurance
By glblguy
I’ve been with State Farm insurance for more than 23 years and I’ve even had the same agent. While I would consider myself very loyal to them, I still get quotes from other insurance companies just to make sure I’m still getting the best deal. Insurance is expensive, but fortunately also a very competitive industry. As with anything, it can pay to shop around.
A number of web-sites have emerged on the web that allow you to comparison shop your insurance. Once such company that I decided to try out is 01Insurance.com. 01Insurance states that they work with The Hartford, MetLife, Interboro Insurance, Travelers, Progressive, AIG, and GMAC Insurance.
Requesting a Quote
Receiving a quote was easy and only takes a few minutes. You begin by selecting the type of insurance quote you’re interested in: Auto, Home, Business or Commercial Auto or Truck followed by your zip code.
The 01Insurance.com website then begins asking you all of the information necessary to provide you with a quote. The site requires you to give out your personal information such as address, telephone number and email. While I am not always comfortable doing this, they do seem to have a good privacy policy and a no junk mail guarantee.
Additional screens ask you for information about your current coverage and the type of coverage you would like a comparison of.
Quotes
Once you’ve completed the requested information, you are sent an email indicating you’ve been matched with local insurance providers in your area that will call you to provide quotes. This is where the service surprised me a little, as I was under the impression I would receive my quotes via email. That is not how 01insurance.com works. The system matches you up with local insurance agents in your area that will develop a quote for you and call you to provide the quote.
After reading over the sites information a little, I can understand why they do this. Insurance quotes are difficult to compare apples to apples and rates depend on the area you live in. To provide more accurate quotes, 01insurance relies on your local agent to provide the quote.
01Insurance.com utilizes Netquote’s services under the covers and Netquote is whom you will receive your emails from, so don’t be surprised.
Agents
Due to me living in a rural area, only one agent from Allstate was on my list of “matched agents”. What was interesting about this was that AllState wasn’t on the list of insurance companies 01insurance.com listed. I didn’t have an issue with this, as the more replies I received the better, I just found it odd. I would suspect this is due to 01insurance using Netquote as a service provider.
The agent called the next day, verified my information and provided me with a quote. As usual, it was higher than my current State Farm rates. The agent was friendly and not pushy at all. I was hoping for my agent responses, but would suspect if you live in a more populated area you will receive far more agent matches than I did.
Shopping Around
I would suggest shopping around for insurance every 6 months to a year. In my case since I’ve been with the same company for so long and have all of my insurance with them, the rates are tough for competitors to beat due to the large discounts I receive. Regardless though I still shop. A little time spent could be worth it if I saved a few hundred dollars a year.
If you are intersted in shoppoing around for competetive rates on your insurance, I’d suggest you give 01insurance.com a try. My experience with them was really good and so far to spam email, no junk mail, and no harrasing phone calls. That’s always a good thing in my book. I’m not entirely convinced they aren’t just a wrapper around Netquote, but since the service delivered what they promised, I’m ok with that.
How about you? Do you insurance shop? How do you go about comparing rates? Do you use an online comparison site?
January 26th, 2009 at 9:03 am
Very informative post! I agree that shopping around is essential. We haven’t found a better insurance deal than the company we are with (ANPAC) — and they offer a 25% premium refund if we don’t have a claim for three years. We just got our first refund check a couple of months ago, and as long as we remain claim free, we’ll get a check every year. 25% of the premium isn’t a lot, but it is something — most insurance companies won’t offer any sort of refund.
January 26th, 2009 at 9:39 am
While shopping around don’t forget you may need to use your insurance at some point, and it would be nice to be with a company that gives you someone to talk to, and that will give good customer service. And make sure you’re getting the same coverage. I had a friend that saved a lot switching to another company, but it turned out she had dropped to liability only on their older car. And then they totaled it. Not a savings in the long run. (or short for them since it happened soon after the change!)
January 26th, 2009 at 9:53 am
I do not shop around, but recognize that I should be to make sure my current premiums are competitive. Thanks for this reminder!
January 26th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Most all of the companies (if not all) listed for your quote are under the same umbrella. I know for sure that AIG, Travelers, Hartford, and Progressive are as my mom is a cust. serv. rep. for them. Seems kind of like a genius marketing technique. Shopping around is great advice, but you wouldn’t have found the lowest rate without talking to State Farm. So I guess making sure to check with several companies that aren’t tied to each other is pertinent…unless your mom is your csr…then you have to take the best she has to offer or pay a far greater price in grief. :)
January 26th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I do not shop around. I was fortunate to be eligible for USAA. Their rates are the best i see anywhere and you have part ownership of the company which means you get yearly dividends or added savings.
January 26th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Great info! I’ve been with State Farm for over 25 years, but they are really expensive to add my teenage son (17), even as a 2nd driver on my Town & Country van – which is cheap to insure.
I’ve been planning to shop around to see if someone would insure him more reasonably, as this has worked for several parents I know.
I’d hate to leave my State Farm agent, but I need to be able to insure my son, so I’ll do what I have to do.
January 26th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I’m with you that I’ve been with State Farm (and the same agent) for as long as I’ve had insurance. Occasionally, I’ll shop some stuff around but my agent takes good care of us, which adds value to the product.
I’ll check out 01insurance though…thanks for the heads up on it.
January 26th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
I switched from State Farm (my family and I used them all our lives) to Progessive last year and I saved $17/mo. And now I just renewed my policy and it has gone down to $110/mo. GET OUT OF STATE FARM- too expensive!
January 26th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I was a csr in the insurance industry for about 8 years and a lot of people do not realize the benefit of shopping around. First and foremost, people need to know and understand the coverage they presently have, so that when they do receive a competitive quote, they’ll know if it’s truly comparable. Sometimes just asking your agent to sit down with you and go over your policy with you makes a big difference. And don’t be afraid to ask “Are there any more discounts I may be eligible for?” Some agents represent more than one company and you may be able to keep your great customer service and get a new policy with a new company.
I think you wrote a great post.
January 26th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I am a State Farm Agent and I love what I do!!!!
To Diane above. Call your agent. You can usually get a good student discount and a steer clear discount. Each is 15% and will save a ton!
Netquotes is a service I use in my agency. They get your info and send it to a couple of different agents/ companies. They charge us about $10 a lead and we call the leads they provide. There are lots of different services like this online. Some are great some not so great.
To Michigan above…every company uses different models to rate clients. No one gets the same rate as anyone else anymore. So your experience is just that…your experience…your neighbor with the same exact info will have a different rate…it all depends on the infol that the company is using to differentiate between good risks and bad risks. Glad you found a company that uses a model that makes you look good!!!
June 18th, 2013 at 4:27 pm
my bride lost her hair in a fire and i ate cake