How would you have gone about auto insurance comparisons if you were buying ten years ago?  Depending where you live, you may have been able to walk into an insurance company branch office and speak with an agent who could show you those company’s plans.  Alternatively, you may have seen a commercial on television that showed you a telephone number you could call to speak with a representative.  Twenty years ago, you might have even gone to the yellow pages to find out who in your area might be able to offer what.

In this day and age, such activities seem clearly excessive and less effective than convenient and powerful tools that are available online.  If anything, the opposite problem now exists:  a simple search for sites that do auto insurance comparisons is likely to yield an overabundance of results.

So, how do you strike a balance between finding not enough information to conduct thorough auto insurance comparisons, and finding too much?  The secret is in weeding out the great sites from the mediocre ones when you do your initial searching online.  The following are some tips for success:

Good search terms yield good searches.  Therefore, use phrases that describe exactly what you’re looking for.  Something such as “auto insurance rate quote” and “compare auto insurance” will yield web sites that focus on contrasting plan features from a wide group of companies.

Watch out for special interests.  Make sure that providers and policies shown through search results are not represented through private interests.  Sniff out broker incentives by trying to gain an understanding of whether the comparator site is paid more favorable commissions or fees by certain companies over others.

Read the small print.  Since you will pay a great deal over time, commit to fully understanding coverage and terms.

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