How To Buy Auto Insurance Online (Without Getting Spammed!)

If you've ever shopped for auto insurance online and suddenly started getting nonstop robo calls, text messages and spam emails, this episode is for you. Today I'm going to show you how to compare rates, protect your privacy, and save money at the same time. In this episode, we'll talk about how to find the best auto insurance coverage at the lowest possible price without giving away your personal data. Whether you're buying your first policy, reviewing your current coverage or simply trying to lower your premium, this podcast will give you clear real world guidance from an industry insider. This is the auto insurance expert. I'm your host Stephen Lang and I'm here to show you how auto insurance really works so you can make faster, smarter decisions, choose the right coverage and get the best value for your money. If you're a driver in the US and want to make buying auto insurance simple and stress free, you're in the right place. Let's start with this question. Have you ever visited an auto insurance website expecting to enter some basic information, compare prices, and then be able to purchase the policy online. Sounds simple enough right? Actually, that's what the websites that you probably landed on lead you to believe. Well, if you're listening to this podcast, what probably happened, looked more like this. You searched online for auto insurance, you clicked on a website that displayed a bunch of familiar carrier logos and gave the impression that you could quickly compare rates and buy insurance directly online. So you started entering some basic information, your vehicle, your age, your address, your email address, and your cell phone number. Some sites will even ask for an estimated credit score range before show pricing. Suddenly your phone starts ringing and you haven't even finished or received the quote yet. What just happened? Most likely your information has been sold in real time to a marketing vendor or an online insurance agency. That Joe from agency X calling you, he purchased your lead while you were still on the website. Think about that for a second. That's how sophisticated these places are. They are literally selling your data while you're on the site. Meanwhile, you ignore the phone call and you continue in entering your information because your original goal was simple. You want to get an online quote so you can compare and hopefully save some money. So finally, pricing appears sort of in terms of there's a price and it's got a carrier name to it and it's got you to click on it. But when you click into the box or the quote, you get redirected to another website. What? How'd that? Why is that? Well, it's because you're on a lead generation site and they are now transferring your data to whichever site you just clicked into for a fee. Now the site may be a carrier site so it may be the real deal. It may be an agency site could be a real deal or maybe it's another lead generation platform. Not so good. At this phone, your phone has started to ring repeatedly. Your email inbox is getting hammered with email spam and you're probably starting to get text messages. So you're now realizing insane yourself. This is not what I signed up for. What just happened? Well, what happened was you likely encountered a what isn't called in the industry a lead generation website. These sites primarily make their money by collecting and selling your personal information to as many vendors as possible. The good news. There is a better way to shop for auto insurance online and that's exactly what we're going to cover today. So before you begin shopping, my recommendation is to gather some basic information up front. This information is going to be required by all the sites and it's going to make the process faster and smoother for you. So that information is going to include the year make model of the vehicles you have. VIN numbers if available. VIN number being that 17 digit number. VINs are great if you've got them because when you plug those into the online site, it'll bring up the specific model that you own. You're also going to want to know the ages or the day the births for the drivers you want to insured. The key point here is the more accrued your information is up front. The more accrued your quote will be. Next, you got to establish your coverage baselines. The reason we want to do that is if you know what your coverage baselines are then when you're on the site, the comparison site or the direct site, you're asking for the same coverage limits. So we're now in comparing quote and apples to apples basis. So how would you know what your coverage limits are and deductibles? Great question. And I would say this. If you already have an insurance policy in place, I am quite sure that the carrier nowadays has an online app. Either pull up that app and pull the policy up online. You'll see what they call a coverage declaration. And that's going to list your coverage limits, your vehicles. It's going to have your VIN numbers. If you haven't got an online app yet or downloaded it, I recommend you do it fairly simple. If you're old fashioned like I am and still get snail mail, well then somewhere in your records, you're going to have a copy of the policy it was mail to you. And again, you can pull that out and you'll see what they call the declaration page and it'll display your coverage limits, your vehicles, etc, etc. So current coverage in place, Apple Apple is, let's compare to your current coverage is. If you don't have coverage in place, I recommend you do a quick Google or chat TPP search to identify what the state minimum insurance requirements are for your state. For example, in Florida, the minimum limit is what they would consider 10, 20, 10. Each state has various limits or different limits. So that's a state by state basis. Now let's talk about the second part of your policy, deductibles. The deductibles are the part that you're responsible for when there's a claim that you've got to come out of pocket with. I generally recommend higher deductibles because it's an effective way to keep your premium down and I'd rather you spend your insurance dollars on higher liable limits than lower deductibles. However, the deductible that you choose needs to be within your budget if in fact you do have a claim. So ask yourself if I had a claim tomorrow would pay in $1,000 out of pocket, create a financial hardship. If the answer is yes, then $1,000 deductibles probably not for you. If the answer is no, then $1,000 deductible is what you want to have. Of course, the even of higher limits. Okay. So two important concepts to remember. deductibles higher deductible, the less the insurance cost. Reason is, quick example. You have a $5,000 loss paid loss. Go to the repair shop, pick the car up and the guy says, all right, it's $5,000 bill. You've got a $1,000 deductible. You got to come out of pocket with $1,000 in the insurance carrier. You've got to pay the $4,000 balance. Contrast that with if you have a $250 deductible, same $5,000 repair bill. You're on the hook for the $250 carriers on the hook for $47.50. Since the carrier is on the hook, for more with the lower deductible, you pay a slightly higher premium for the lower deductible. Now the reverse is true with liability limits. The higher the liability limits you end up purchasing, the more you're going to pay. Reason is, you now bought more protection, more product caught what you want, but you're buying more coverage. Gonna cost more. Easy example would be you go to the supermarket. You buy one gown of milk versus two gown of milk. The two gowns of milk cost you more than one. Why? You have more product. Insurance liability works similarly. The more or the higher the limits you have, the more it's going to cost you. A sound strategy would be hired deductibles. If you can afford it, it keeps your overall premium cost down. Second benefit of that is, if you go over time, let's say you've been 12 years and you've been accident-free, think about the money you could have saved if you had a higher deductible. Third point, keep in mind, a deductible only comes in the play if in fact you have a loss. Smart strategy, sound strategy. I like to give to all my current customers. If you have a fixed insurance budget, consider increasing your deductible variables in user. those savings to purchase higher live bill limits. This can significantly improve your financial protection without increasing your monthly premium. All right, let's talk about the next big item today. The truth about email addresses and cell phone numbers. Let me be crystal clear on this. Auto insurance companies do not require your email address or cell phone number to generate a quote. Now, let me repeat that. Your email address and cell phone number are not insurance rating factors. So if a website requires your email address or cell number before showing you pricing, understand that there's a strong possibility, that information will be used to market to you, lead sales and follow up solicitation. So that's why when you're on that site and you put in your email and your cell phone number, your phone starts ringing and it doesn't stop. You're going to get spam text messages. You're going to get endless emails and you're going to get aggressive sales calls. So protect your information, control the narrative. Here's a simple strategy I recommend on how people ask me, how do I avoid these lead generation sites? Great question. And it's as simple as this, I believe. The first search you do, whether it's Google, Gemini, chat GPT, whoever you're using, type in this search. Auto insurance lead generation sites. The list will pop up. It's the same ones. There's a bunch. There's probably about 10 of them that dominate the space or the market and they'll pop up. Okay. Now, from that point, the obvious would be I would strongly recommend avoiding those sites unless you enjoy getting bombarded with marketing calls and emails. So the next thing you're going to do is search for auto insurance online, auto insurance comparison sites in your given area. So if you say live in Miami, Florida, auto insurance online, Miami, Florida, if you live in Birmingham, Alabama, auto insurance comparison sites, Birmingham, Alabama, put in your town and narrows the search downs, also going to bring in to play more local independent agents, okay, who can't compete if that makes sense against progressive and the guy goes in the state farms of the world on a statewide or nationwide basis. So it's going to give you some more choices to choose from state. The obvious, any site that comes up in your auto insurance online, Birmingham, Alabama search, that also happens to be on the lead generation site, less that you previously pulled avoid, unless you want to get the calls, the emails, the text. Ideally, this comparison platform website that you choose after doing your search should display pricing from multiple established brand name carriers such as progressive guy go travelers, AAA, all state state farm, etc. These are the major insurance companies that have large underwriting databases, strong pricing models, established claims operations and broad coverage options. Additionally to those guys or that site, if you're in the military or from a military family, I would also recommend going visiting the USAAA website, USAAA auto insurance for military families. They do a fabulous job if you qualify. So after you've done your search, you've got a site or two to hit, probably only need one to two if again they have those five, six, seven, eight carriers because you're just duplicating the process, right? Here's what you're going to do. You're going to complete the quote process, okay? If you're satisfied with the pricing, contact the agency or carrier directly, okay? Or voluntarily provide your contact information to move forward. What does that mean? Some sites aren't going to ask you for your email or cell phone until after you see the pricing, the quote pricing. And then if you choose to be contacted, you can enter your information. Now, if you want to stay in control and you don't want anybody contacting you, then you don't have to. So that's keeps you in control of the process. It can keep your data safe because if you have not provided your email or your cell phone, the sites who buy that information aren't interested in you because they can't contact you. Now, after you have reviewed the quotes and you've decided on a certain company, you will choose either an agency or insurance carrier direct to purchase that policy from. You will then contact that entity, either still in the online of environment or you'd now pick the phone up and you want to talk to them directly. In either scenario, what's going to then occur is the site or the agent that you're now talking to is going to do a quick confirmation of the information you've submitted online. It's going to ask a few follow-up questions. The reason that is it's impossible in the online quote format to ask all the questions that a specific carrier may have. So when you're in this stage, whatever questions that were not asked in the online environment that the carrier needs to know, that's what they're asking. Lastly, the site or the agent is going to request permission to access consumer reports. Consumer reports are required to finalize and get the actual price that you can purchase. These reports commonly include MBR, which is short for motor vehicle report, which is a report of your driving history, check it, etc. There's a report called an insurance score, which is a predictive scoring model used to estimate the likelihood of a future claim. And lastly, a report, acronym called Clue, which is an acronym for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange. And this report is a record of any prior insurance claims or paid losses you've had. Once these reports are reviewed and inputted into the quote, the quote goes from being a quote to becoming final. Keep in mind the quote that you had online in the final price may change after the receipt of these reports. Largely, it's a result of something came up on your motor vehicle report, i.e. a ticket that you've forgotten about or a claim came up on your clue report again that you had forgotten about or maybe was your wife or was your kids. So if the quote changes between quote and going final after these reports are run, that's why. Another factor to keep in mind, any quote you get online if you're comparing a quote to a quote is great, but it's not the final price until these reports are processed. Okay. So now the reports have been processed. You're satisfied still with the quote or the premium and the final price is displayed either online or over the phone. At that point payment options will come up on the screen or the agent will tell you he's going to then ask you do you want to pay in full or would you like to pay it on payments. You choose then the question is going to be posed by credit or debit card or echeck. You'll then provide that information either online or provide it over the phone. Once that happens that submitted payment is approved and then the coverage is bound. At that point policy documents are then produced and those documents would be sent electronically to you for your signatures. Easy time saving and money saving. So it is possible to purchase auto insurance either online or by phone from a site that you started on. Vine auto insurance online can and will save you time in money if you prepare properly. Compare the quotes apples to apples and you protect your personal information. Thanks for listening to the auto insurance expert podcast. I'm Steven Lang. I'll see you next time when we discuss the different auto insurance distribution models and how each one really works behind the scenes. You've been listening to the Auto Insurance Expert. If you found this episode helpful, be sure to follow on your favorite podcast platform for more auto insurance insights. Until next time.