The quickest way to get a car insurance quote is online, and it is also the best if you want to find the cheapest price available for the type of insuring agreement that you are looking for. However, online is not the only way to get a quote, and people were buying car insurances long before computers came on the scene.
The snail's pace equivalent of an online quote was the telephone quote, whereby you would telephone auto insurance companies and request a quotation. Either they would post you a form by snail mail, or they would take your details and provide you with a quote over the phone: no toll free numbers then, so the quote was anything but free. In fact in many cases you had to pay for the quote, on the pretext that it cost the insurance company time and money to provide you with a quotation. No mention of what it cost you in telephone charges!
If you wanted to compare prices you literally had to walk the streets from office to office (you couldn't drive your uninsured motor vehicle!) and it was not easy to negotiate for discounts. Now, however, it is much simpler with the internet and most auto insurance companies offer automobile insurance policies online. You can get the quote online and accept it online. It is also a lot easier to negotiate the best auto insurance rates possible by comparing the prices of a large number of companies from the comfort of your home. You needn't deal only with insurers that have branches in your home town, but nationwide - even international!
Before applying for online quotes you are advised to decide in advance what level of cover you want in your automobile insurance policy. If you want to carry out real comparisons, each insurer should be given the same information. If want to see the difference in price with and without collision coverage, for example, you can do that later. Right now you should be checking out the cheapest for the basic type of insurance most relevant to your needs. Collision and physical damage coverage can be added later once you have a short-list.
Your initial insurance quote should be for the state minimum liability cover, and you can include collision here, but only if you do so for all insurers and only if your car warrants it. Collision coverage is a waste of money if your car is going to be totalled after a small bump! Comprehensive fits into the same category. However, you might want personal injury coverage to pay for your medical expenses if you are injured, but again state it for each quote and also state the same amount for each motor insurance company.
Where at all possible keep all the information you provide exactly the same across the board. Each form will be different, so it might not be possible to keep them exactly the same, but it should be as near as you can, otherwise your comparisons will not be valid and you won't necessarily get the cheapest quotes. The idea is to get a car insurance quote from each auto insurance company that is based upon the same information, and then to decide which are the cheapest: i.e. which provide the same level of cover for less money.
These will form your final list from which you are going to select your choice of motor insurer. The final choice will be based upon by how much you can beat them down using the various factors that can be used to get discounts. Factors such as your deductible - never include your maximum deductible in the initial quotation form. Keep some up your sleeve for future negotiation.
The general idea is to get a final three or four, and then to get further discounts from each of these. That's when you tell them about the driving courses you have taken, or the extra safety features on your car. Tell them about your car being garaged and locked up every night and anything else you can think of that might get you a discount. They won't offer you one, but if you ask then you can get reductions if they are warranted.
Your objective is to get a car insurance quote that is as cheap as possible while not sacrificing any of the cover that you feel you need. You can achieve that much easier by comparing a number of different insurers online.
