Living costs are rising, VAT has gone up to 20%, fuel and energy prices are heading up again. So looking for savings wherever you can is a good idea. Where can you get cheap car insurance quotes to save yourself money?
The answer naturally is in all sorts of locations. There are a growing number of comparison websites that offer a variety of different services, including retrieving for you a whole raft of free car insurance quotes. You can of course phone round all the providers and brokers yourself, or check out all the websites one by one. But which of these methods is best and what do they each entail?
The comparison website is the quickest way to get a large number of quotes and has by far the least repetition. You enter the details of the car the cover is for, often with a search facility to help you identify the correct make and model, those of all the drivers to be covered and what cover you desire. The website then submits these details to all the websites it has on its books and gets your free car insurance quotes, which it then presents to you. The methods of display vary, but generally they are organised by price, some having a section for those that don’t hit all the requirements you listed and those that refused to offer that cover, usually with why. The list usually gives the key points of the policy, with options to look at more closely and how to go to the insurance/brokers website to accept the quote and fill in payment details to take out the insurance policy. This method gets you a wide range of quotes, presented clearly alongside each other for comparison, meaning you don’t have to search for insurers and only need enter your details once in the whole process. Not all insurers will give free car insurance quotes to comparison sites though, so relying on this method alone may mean you miss out on the absolute cheapest, though it may not.
Going to all the insurers’ websites yourself does mean you’ll get quotes from those companies who choose not to appear on comparison websites for whatever reason. It is however laborious and means you have to find out all the websites yourself and enter all the details into the forms manually. Security wise it has the advantage that it removes a third party from the loop, so less companies have your details, however it does mean that you are visiting a lot more sites and typing in your details, which means that you increase the likelihood of an identity thief getting their tools onto your PC and then of them getting useful data; the risk however is low, if you take the correct precautions.
Phoning round all the insurers unless you are a really slow typist is likely to be the slowest option, with the added time penalties of automated phone menus, being on hold and waiting for an answer. It is not without its benefits though and after the first few quotes you can try and reduce the later quotes by telling them about your previous free car insurance quotes, to try and get them to offer lower quotes themselves. Free phone numbers are not uncommon in the industry, but not universal, especially if you are using a mobile, so do bear this in mind.
Which is the best method to get you free car insurance quote? Well it depends the best method used on its own, assuming you have internet at home, is likely to be a comparison website. But a little bit of extra time and effort, by using the comparison website first to get a range of car insurance quotes, then using the web to get quotes from those sites such as womens car insurance that don’t appear on comparison sites to get yourself a good idea of what the cheapest out there is and then decide. If you really want to hunt down that perfect deal, with your list of quotes call up your current provider and tell them that you have quotes that beat theirs and won’t be renewing with them. While they won’t always they may well reduce their own quote, or add in some extras onto the policy in an attempt to retain a customer. Customer retention is an important drive, as anyone who has tried to cancel a satellite TV or mobile phone contract may well have experienced being offered all sorts of deals to prevent them from leaving. Whatever you do when your insurance is up for renewal don’t just go with the same people again without checking out what the competition is offering. Just because your current insurer was cheapest last time doesn’t mean there aren’t cheaper quotes out there this time round.
