How Car Insurance Quotes Work – And Why You Need Comparison Quotes

Myth: all car insurance is the same. Just pick the company with the cutest mascot or coolest commercial and you’re good to go.

Fact: Different car insurance companies will quote different prices for the same policy. That’s why it’s so important to shop and compare car insurance quotes. You could save hundreds of dollars. Here’s how the process works.

It all begins with the application. Car insurance companies ask for slightly different information based on legal requirements and company practice. Some factors are never allowed, such as race and religion, and others – such as credit history – are sometimes prohibited. Certain information that may seem irrelevant, such as age, gender, home ownership and marital status are often important. Insurance companies place weight on multiple factors. When you compare car insurance quotes, you’re matched with the right company for your situation.

Sometimes it’s hard to see why you need to provide information, like your social security number, to get quotes. However, the insurance company needs that information to give you a real rate you can buy instead of an estimated quote. That means you must enter accurate information to compare accurate car insurance quotes. If you enter fictional or incorrect details, you’ll get a meaningless quote that you can’t buy. That’s because of what happens to the information after you enter it.

When you apply for car insurance, you are sorted into a rating group based on the information you provide, in addition to data like your insurance claim history and motor vehicle report. Then the insurance company finds and returns the car insurance quote information for the rate group you’re in. The car insurance quotes come from the company’s computerized rating engine based on information you enter online or an agent types into a computer.

Each company has many different groups, and the rates are different for each group. Every insurance company is legally required to set its rates based on its own experience with claims payments and expenses associated with each rating group. That means rates can vary considerably from one car insurance company to the next, even for the exact same driver. That’s why it’s so important to compare car insurance quotes.

You wouldn’t take your car in for major repairs without getting quotes from a few places, right? And you wouldn’t want them to guess what they’ll charge you based on generic details about your situation, would you? After all, what good is it to you if they would charge a typical customer $400 to repair a car with four doors, if they’re going to charge you $1,000 to repair your specific car?

So, why would you want other insurance companies or websites to guess what you might end up paying for car insurance? You can’t buy someone else’s estimate or guess. You can buy the real rates insurance.com receives instantly, direct from the insurance companies we represent. Get your car insurance comparison quotes now and see how much you can save.

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