Midlife today is unquestionably different from those of our parents. The digital era provides us with new resources for just about everything. Nowadays we do business online, communicate with family and friends, and even purchase car insurance online. Prior to the digital era, shopping for insurance meant phone calls to multiple companies. Frustration no doubt settled in after hours were spent with varying, vague results. Do you remember a parent on the phone with an insurance company? Not a good memory as I recall.
Shopping for insurance rates is not easy to begin with and the resulting quotes can vary quite extensively from company to company. With online car insurance quotes, the documents are immediately available for review. This relieves those extensive phone conversations and the chance for jotting down information incorrectly. Or perhaps not being able to read your own hand written insurance notes. How many times does that happen, right?
Being a midlife geek type mom and small business owner, I’ll share a few online insurance “lessons learned” to help avoid the frustration of gathering estate car insurance quotes online. Who knows they possibly could save a few dollars on those insurance premiums as well.
Before The Quote
Pull out and review your current policy. There may be smart ways you can cut your premiums by raising deductibles, or dropping collision insurance on an older car. Decide where changes, if any, will be made for the new policy prior to requesting new car insurance quotes.
Have the following information on hand:
- Current policy declaration page
- The state operator license numbers for all drivers to be on the insurance policy
- Dates of all tickets and infractions for all drivers, if any
- Date and outcome of accidents, generally within the last five years
- Lien holder information available for any car that has a loan attached
Selecting the Insurance Website
Search for websites that advertise discounts across multiple companies. These discounts are commonly offered for multiple policies, safe drivers, and good students. At times, discounts for multiple policies will be as much as 25%.
Avoid quick quote insurance sites that ask for minimal information. More times than not, these quotes appear very affordable upon inception. The process is merely an insurance lead service. Trust me on this they got me once. These insurance sites requiring a name, zip code, email, and phone number. The information is sent several customer service reps for several different insurance companies. After receiving a confirmation email prompting a return to the site, the premiums are displayed. These generally require a telephone conversation or two with each customer service rep in each data center either by the purchaser or from the carrier. The coverage did vary from company to company making this a time consuming process, difficult for comparison along with several very high premiums.
Being prepared with pertinent information may save a great deal of time and frustration when purchasing any type of insurance. By providing accurate information, to all companies should then be quoting identical coverage, making for easy comparisons. In addition, premiums increases will be less likely due to missing information.
