How to shop for car insurance

In this blog I am going to focus on the best way to buy Auto Insurance and how to shop for it.

In future blogs I will drill down into the specific coverages that are required in Illinois, and optional coverages you may want to consider.

As online technology gets more and more advanced, more and more companies are offering online insurance quotes.

You can literally go online at 3am in your underwear and shop for Auto insurance.

First off, if you are anything like me, you are probably not completely comfortable sending information into cyber space to God knows exactly where and for who to have access to it?  This often leads to people entering incomplete or inaccurate information to get the lowest rate they can manipulate.

I have been a licensed insurance producer in the State of Illinois for 15 years and have worked as a sales producer for agents of three different major Auto Insurance companies.

I can tell you from experience, that when you buy a policy online, there are usually big problems with the coverages.

Either they are missing important coverage, or the deductibles are set at astronomical numbers so that when there is a claim you will not be happy with what is not covered by saving a few bucks.

There are also sites that will pop up based on your search history and offer you insurance rates starting at $5 per month.

These sites are “warm insurance lead aggregator sites”. These sites charge insurance agents per lead and they sell your information to hundreds of agents who agree to pay for these leads.

When you enter your information into one of those sites you better put your phone on silent because you are about to be called and emailed by dozens of hungry insurance agents looking to close a deal right now.

The whole reason you went online in the first place was to NOT deal with high pressure insurance salesmen!

You can also call an 800 number to buy insurance and speak to a call center representative. I’ve called these a few times before to see what the experience would be like, and I can tell you that it’s a high-pressure sales call.

They really don’t care if you get a good value, they are more focused on getting you a cheap price.

They know that if you agree to cheap coverage and then have a claim they will never have to deal with it because they are in a call center possibly hundreds of miles away.

So what’s the best way to buy insurance?

No matter how much technology advances to quote insurance, in my opinion being able to find a local agent who’s reputation and customer satisfaction that you can check out is the way to go.  

Ask your friends and neighbors who they use or ask your real estate agent if you’re new to the area and buying a home.

You can call a “captive” agent that can only give you quotes for the one company that they represent (State Farm, Farmers, Allstate as examples) or you can call an independent agent like me who can quote many companies for you.

After reading this blog, if you’re in Illinois, you should contact my agency. All American Insurance Alliance – AAIA at 224-877-2242 (AAIA) you can call or text to that number.

I am an independent insurance agent who will represent YOU and not a specific company. I have access to many many more companies than a captive agent so when you call us we will compare those companies against each other to get you insured with the best company with the best rate. We deal with top rated Insurance companies who you have definitely heard of but for contractual reasons some of them we can’t advertise online.

John Marino is the owner of the All American Insurance Alliance - AAIA and has been a Licensed Insurance Producer in Illinois for 15 years.