As the internet continues to reach further into Americans everyday lives, online car insurance companies are starting to reap the benefits, according to comScore, a Reston, Virginia-based firm that specializes in benchmarking online sales.
“The online auto insurance market has been dominated by only a handful of insurers over the past few years, with GEICO and Progressive comprising over 50 percent of all quotes submitted online,” said comScore director Susan Kleinman. “But as more consumers look to the Internet to shop for insurance policies, there is an opportunity for more insurers to break into the online market.”
Customers looking for a new policy may want to receive several car insurance quotes, and the internet makes that possible without ever leaving home. For the small companies, only having to build one website that can service multiple regions may be able to allow them to save money and provide competitive rates.
What are the experts saying?
Many experts believe there are advantages of multiple car insurance quotes, because they allow the customer to find out exactly what level of savings they can achieve. When the large companies had this market cornered, options may have been limited.
During the last 12 months many companies had triple-digit gains in the amount of traffic they had on their sites, according to comScore. USAA.com was the lead gainer, with 6.5 million visitors, according to the news source. American Family had 1.3 million visitors and Mercury Insurance had 686,000.
Why car insurance quotes online, provide the best insurance rates
To ensure that a driver is getting the right quote, it is important to determine exactly what their needs are before they start shopping, Insurance News Today reports. Comparison shopping sites that search multiple carriers at one time will typically take certain information from the driver, get several quotes from carriers and then deliver the lowest three to five options.
Many experts believe that comparison shopping is the best way to get the most appealing rate, but warn that it is only the beginning of the process. Shoppers should then contact the insurance companies they are interested directly, over the phone or in person, according to the news source. The quotes people receive online may not be usually accurate to the dollar. Also, there may be other auto insurance options that the driver wants, but did not realize they could get.