If you’ve ever shopped for auto insurance online and suddenly started getting non-stop robo calls, text messages, and spam emails, this episode is for you. Today I’m going to show you how to compare rates, protect your privacy, and save money at the same time.

In this episode, we’ll talk about how to find the best auto insurance coverage at the lowest possible price without giving away your personal data. Whether you’re buying your first policy, reviewing your current coverage, or simply trying to lower your premium, this podcast will give you clear, real-world guidance from an industry insider.

This is the Auto Insurance Expert. I’m your host, Steven Lang, and I’m here to show you how auto insurance really works so you can make faster, smarter decisions, choose the right coverage, and get the best value for your money. If you’re a driver in the US and want to make buying auto insurance simple and stress-free, you’re in the right place.

Let’s start with this question: Have you ever visited an auto insurance website expecting to enter some basic information, compare prices, and then be able to purchase the policy online? Sounds simple enough, right? Actually, that’s what the websites that you probably landed on lead you to believe.

Well, if you’re listening to this podcast, what probably happened looked more like this. You searched online for auto insurance. You clicked on a website that displayed a bunch of familiar carrier logos and gave the impression that you could quickly compare rates and buy insurance directly online.

So, you started entering some basic information, your vehicle, your age, your address, your email address, and your cell phone number. Some sites will even ask for an estimated credit score range before show pricing.

Suddenly, your phone starts ringing, and you haven’t even finished or received the quote yet. What just happened? Most likely, your information has been sold in real time to a marketing vendor or an online insurance agency. That Joe from Agency X calling you, he purchased your lead while you were still on the website. Think about that for a second. That’s how sophisticated these places are. They are literally selling your data while you’re on the site.

Meanwhile, you ignore the phone call, and you continue entering your information because your original goal was simple: you want to get an online quote so you can compare and hopefully save some money. So, finally, pricing appears, sort of, in terms of there’s a price and it’s got a carrier name to it, and it’s got you to click on it. But when you click into the box or the quote, you get redirected to another website. What? How that? Why is that? Well, it’s because you’re on a lead generation site, and they are now transferring your data to whichever site you just clicked into, for a fee.

Now, this site may be a carrier site, so it may be the real deal. It may be an agency site, could be a real deal, or maybe it’s another lead generation platform. Not so good. At this point, your phone has started to ring repeatedly. Your email inbox is getting hammered with email spam, and you’re probably starting to get text messages.

So, you’re now realizing and saying yourself, “This is not what I signed up for. What just happened?” Well, what happened was you likely encountered a what isn’t called in the industry a lead generation website. These sites primarily make their money by collecting and selling your personal information to as many vendors as possible.

The good news? There is a better way to shop for auto insurance online, and that’s exactly what we’re going to cover today. So, before you begin shopping, my recommendation is to gather some basic information up front. This information is going to be required by all the sites, and it’s going to make the process faster and smoother for you.

So, that information is going to include the year make and model of the vehicles you have. VIN numbers if available, a VIN number being that 17-digit number. VINs are great if you’ve got them because when you plug those into the online site, it’ll bring up the specific model that you own. You’re also going to want to know the ages or the date of births for the drivers you want insured. The key point here is the more accurate your information is up front, the more accurate your quote will be.

Next, you got to establish your coverage baselines. The reason we want to do that is if you know what your coverage baselines are, then when you’re on the site, the comparison site or the direct site, you’re asking for the same coverage limits. So, we’re now in comparing quote an apples to apples basis.

So, how would you know what your coverage limits are and deductibles? Great question. And I would say this: if you already have an insurance policy in place, I am quite sure that the carrier nowadays has an online app. Either pull up that app and pull the policy up online, you’ll see your what they call the coverage declarations, and that’s going to list your coverage limits, your vehicles, it’s going to have your VIN numbers. If you haven’t got an online app yet or downloaded it, I recommend you do it, fairly simple. If you’re old fashioned like I am and uh still get snail mail, well then somewhere in your records you’re going to have a copy of the policy that was mailed to you, and again you can pull that out and you’ll see what they call the declaration page and it’ll display your coverage limits, your vehicles, et cetera, et cetera.

So, current coverage in place, apple to apple is, let’s compare it to your current coverages. If you don’t have coverage in place, I recommend you do a quick Google or ChatGPT search to identify what the state minimum insurance requirements are for your state. For example, in Florida, the base or the minimum limit is what they would consider 10/20/10. Each state has various limits or different limits, so that’s a state-by-state basis.

Now, let’s talk about the second part of your policy, deductibles. Deductibles are the part that you’re responsible for when there’s a claim that you’ve got to come out of pocket with. I generally recommend higher deductibles because it’s an effective way to keep your premium down, and I’d rather you spend your insurance dollars on higher liability limits than lower deductibles.

However, the deductible that you choose needs to be within your budget if, in fact, you do have a claim. So ask yourself, if I had a claim tomorrow, would paying $1,000 out of pocket create a financial hardship? If the answer is yes, then a $1,000 deductible is probably not for you. If the answer is no, then a $1,000 deductible is what you want to have, of course, they even have higher limits. Okay?

So, two important concepts to remember: deductibles, higher the deductible, the less the insurance cost. Reason is, quick example, you have a $5,000 loss, paid loss, go to the car repair shop, pick the car up, and the guy says, “Alright, it’s a $5,000 bill.” You’ve got a $1,000 deductible, you got to come out of pocket with $1,000, and the insurance carrier has got to pay the $4,000 balance. Contrast that with if you have a $250 deductible, same $5,000 repair bill, you’re on the hook for the $250, carrier’s on the hook for $4,750. Since the carrier is on the hook for more with the lower deductible, you pay a slightly higher premium for the lower deductible.

Now, the reverse is true with liability limits. The higher the liability limits you end up purchasing, the more you’re going to pay. Reason is, you’ve now bought more protection, more product, called what you want, but you’re buying more coverage, going to cost more. Easy example would be you go to the supermarket, you buy one gallon of milk versus two gallon of milk, the two gallons of milk cost you more than one. Why? You have more product. So, insurance liability works similarly. The more or the higher the limits you have, the more it’s going to cost you.

So, a sound strategy would be higher deductibles, if you can afford it. It keeps your overall premium cost down. Second benefit of that is, if you go over time, let’s say you’ve been 12 years and you’ve been accident-free, think about the money you could have saved if you had a higher deductible, right? So, the third point to keep in mind, a deductible only comes into play if, in fact, you have a loss. Okay?

So, smart strategy, sound strategy. I like to give to all my current customers: If you have a fixed insurance budget, consider increasing your deductibles and using those savings to purchase higher liability limits. This can significantly improve your financial protection without increasing your monthly premium.

Alright, let’s talk about the next big item today. The truth about email addresses and cell phone numbers. Let me be crystal clear on this: Auto insurance companies do not require your email address or cell phone number to generate a quote. Let me repeat that. Your email address and cell phone number are not insurance rating factors.

So, if a website requires your email address or cell number before showing you pricing, understand that there’s a strong possibility that information will be used to market to you, lead sales, and follow-up solicitations. So that’s why, when you’re on that site and you’ve put in your email and your cell phone number, your phone starts ringing, and it doesn’t stop. You’re going to get spam text messages, you’re going to get endless emails, and you’re going to get aggressive sales calls.

So, protect your information, control the narrative. Here’s a simple strategy I recommend on how people ask me, “How do I avoid these lead generation sites?” Great question, and it’s as simple as this, I believe. The first search you do, whether it’s Google, Gemini, ChatGPT, whoever you’re using, type in this search: Auto insurance lead generation sites.

The list will pop up. It’s the same ones. There’s a bunch, there’s probably about 10 of them that dominate the space or the market, and they’ll pop up. Okay? Now, from that point, the obvious would be, I would strongly recommend avoiding those sites unless you enjoy getting bombarded with marketing calls and emails.

So, the next thing you’re going to do is search for auto insurance online, auto insurance comparison sites in your given area. So if you, say, live in Miami, Florida, auto insurance online Miami, Florida. If you live in Birmingham, Alabama, auto insurance comparison sites Birmingham, Alabama. Put in your town in there, narrows the search down, also going to bring into play more local independent agents, okay, who can’t compete if that makes sense, against Progressive and the Geicos and the State Farms of the world on a statewide or nationwide basis. So it’s going to give you some more choices to choose from.

State the obvious: any site that comes up in your auto insurance online Birmingham, Alabama search that also happens to be on the lead generation site list that you previously pulled, avoid, unless you want to get the calls, the emails, the texts. Ideally, this comparison platform website that you choose after doing your search should display pricing from multiple established brand-name carriers such as Progressive, Geico, Travelers, AAA, Allstate, State Farm, etc. These are the major insurance companies. They have large underwriting databases, strong pricing models, established claims operations, and broad coverage options.

Additionally to those guys or that site, if you’re in the military or from a military family, I would also recommend going visiting the USAA website. USAA auto insurance for military families, they do a fabulous job if you qualify.

So, after you’ve done your search, you’ve got a site or two to hit, probably only need one to two, if again they have those five, six, seven, eight carriers, because you’re just duplicating the process, right? Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to complete the quote process, okay? If you’re satisfied with the pricing, contact the agency or carrier directly, okay? Or voluntarily provide your contact information to move forward.

What does that mean? Some sites aren’t going to ask you for your email or cell phone until after you see the pricing, the quote pricing. And then if you choose to be contacted, you can enter your information. Now, if you want to stay in control and you don’t want anybody contacting you, then you don’t have to. So, that keeps you in control of the process, it keeps your data safe because if you have not provided your email or your cell phone, the sites who buy that information aren’t interested in you because they can’t contact you.

Now, after you have reviewed the quotes and you’ve decided on a certain company, you will choose either an agency or insurance carrier direct to purchase that policy from. You will then contact that entity, either still in the online environment, or you now pick the phone up and you want to talk to them directly.

In either scenario, what’s going to then occur is the the site or the agent that you’re now talking to is going to do a quick confirmation of the information you submitted online. It’s going to ask a few follow-up questions. The reason that is, it’s impossible in the online quote format to ask all the questions that a specific carrier may have. So, when you’re in this stage, whatever questions that were not asked in the online environment that the carrier needs to know, that’s what they’re asking. Okay?

Lastly, the site or the agent is going to request permission to access consumer reports. Consumer reports are required to finalize and get the actual price that you can purchase. These reports commonly include MVR, which is short for motor vehicle report, which is a report of your driving history, tickets, etc. There’s a report called an insurance score, which is a predictive scoring model used to estimate the likelihood of a future claim. And lastly, there’s a report acronym called CLUE, which is an acronym for Comprehensive Loss Underwriting Exchange. And this report is a record of any prior insurance claims or paid losses you’ve had.

Once these reports are reviewed and inputted into the quote, the quote goes from being a quote to becoming final. Keep in mind, the quote that you had online and the final price may change after the receipt of these reports. Largely, it’s a result of something came up on your motor vehicle report, i.e. a ticket that you forgot about, or a claim came up on your CLUE report. Again, that you’d forgotten about, or maybe was your wife or was your kids. So, if the quote changes between quote and going final after these reports are run, that’s why.

Another factor to keep in mind: Any quote you get online, if you’re comparing a quote to a quote, is great, but it’s not the final price until these reports are processed. Okay. So, now the reports have been processed, you’re satisfied still with the quote or the premium, and the final price is displayed, either online or over the phone. At that point, payment options will come up on the screen or the agent will tell you. He’s going to then ask you, “Do you want to pay in full or would you like to pay it on payments?” You choose. Then the question is going to be posed by credit or debit card or e-check. You will then provide that information either online or provided over the phone.

Once that happens, that’s submitted, payment is approved, and then the coverage is bound. At that point, policy documents are then produced, and those documents would be sent electronically to you for your signatures. Easy, time-saving, and money-saving. So it is possible to purchase auto insurance either online or by phone from a site that you started on.

Buying auto insurance online can and will save you time and money if you prepare properly, compare the quotes apples to apples, and you protect your personal information. Thanks for listening to The Auto Insurance Expert podcast. I’m Steven Lang. I’ll see you next time when we discuss the different auto insurance distribution models and how each one really works behind the scenes.

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