Cheap Auto Insurance Quotes
Purchasing Cheap Auto
Insurance Quotes Online
The Decision is Yours "Cheap" is a subjective term. First off, you and only you can decide exactly what you're looking for in the way of car insurance: liability only, comprehensive, or something in between. Most state laws make it mandatory to have liability insurance at the very least, but if you want to avoid a possible lawsuit and/or big repair costs, you will definitely want to purchase more coverage than is absolutely required and avoid cheap auto insurance.
The Ugly Side of Cheap
Here is an example: Suppose you’ve been very frugal
and purchased the
least amount of insurance your particular state
requires under the law.
The policy you have pays 20,000 worth of bodily
injury coverage per
person, $40,000 worth of bodily injury coverage per
accident, and
$15,000 worth of property damage coverage (also
known as 20/40/15 in the
insurance game). BUT, then the unthinkable happens:
The one and only
time in your entire driving experience, you become
distracted by
something hilarious the deejay says on the radio,
begin laughing so hard
your eyes start tearing, and you totally miss seeing
the stop sign at
the next intersection. You run smack-dab into
someone, and their
hospital bill is second only to the national debt
(or, heaven forbid,
they die); or you jump the curb (yes, even you can
drive like that under
the right – or rather, wrong – circumstances) run
your vehicle onto
someone’s lawn and demolish their $50,000 Rodin
sculpture knockoff they
had privately commissioned. If you are not “judgment
proof,” which means
you have nothing they can legally acquire through a
lawsuit, you can be
held liable. That means your home, the nest egg
you’ve been building
since your first job in high school, any stocks,
bonds, your coin and
baseball card collections, or any other financial
assets you may have
are now in jeopardy. So be sure you give this a lot
of thought.
Okay. So Where Do I Look?
Once you've decided how much and what kind of insurance you need, one of the best ways to find out where to find cheap auto insurance quotes for the most amount of coverage is to ask friends and family. Of course, you'll want to listen to those whose opinions you respect, so don't waste your time on legally blind Uncle Mo who drives despite the fact his license was revoked in 1982 for driving the wrong way on the Interstate but still insists his eyesight is just fine. If you have no family, your friends and neighbors wrote you off years ago, and your coworkers don't speak to you because of the questionable sounds periodically emanating from your cubicle, the next best way to check out auto insurance rates is the Internet. Or maybe you’re just the independent type who likes to do this kind of thing all on your own. Well, bully for you! Here’s how to go for it: Do a search on your favorite search engine using the keywords "Find Cheap Auto Insurance" or any variation thereof, and then take the time to compare rates. Make sure you're comparing apples to apples, though, as far as what all is covered and for how much. Then make sure you check out each company with your state's board of insurance to make sure it is a member in good standing.
There are many Web sites that do the comparing for you, such as Insurance.com, which gives you up to four free quotes at a time, but you must read their disclaimer: "Savings amount based on information provided to ComparisonMarket by consumers who became policyholders and who provided data regarding savings. Your savings may vary." So, in the end, it may very well be your best bet to do the legwork yourself by going to individual companies and getting individual quotes.
The Final Analysis
Of course, to get the very cheapest car insurance quotes, it helps to be over 25, have no tickets or accidents on your record, have several vehicles insured by the same company, and drive a boring car that would only stand out to a traffic cop if Uncle Mo were driving it the wrong way down the Interstate. But since most of us find ourselves lucky if we can meet even one of the criteria above, don’t feel bad if you, like almost all of us, just get the best policy we can for what we can afford – and stop listening to that crazy deejay while we’re driving!