Online shopping has become trend in a lot of shopping activities; you can basically find anything just by sitting at home with computer and internet. However, many people still hesitate to buy car insurance online, because car insurance is something that you really need to pay attention to when purchasing it. Apparently, people still think that buying insurance package through long distance means is something that is akin to bad decision, because the long held belief that transaction is more trusted if the buyer and seller is face to face.
However, what if you are really busy and have no time to visiting insurance companies one by one? What if you live far from even the nearest insurance company office? Online shopping also applies at insurance companies, and as long as you use proper and thorough procedures, you can get the best offer, even if you mainly do your transaction and quote searching online.
What to Do during Online Shopping for Car Insurance
To buy car insurance online, you can do these steps and make sure that you do not do mistakes in your online purchase:
- Make sure you have all the information. To make sure that the process is smooth, you must prepare all the necessary information that insurance company will usually ask. The information is, such as: the VIN numbers of your car plus the mileage and speeding tickets or any violation records if you have (if you already have a car), and information that will relate to the policy details such as family members, income sources, salary, and address. Collect all the written proofs if you have to make everything easier.
- Consider about full coverage. Even if you only can buy the minimum amounts of insurance or coverage the state requires you. This is because you can never guess what will happen on the road; for example, if you are the one who hits a van with four people in it, or if you destroy a good sport car in a collision, your minimum liability coverage will not help. Even if you discuss with insurance agent, make sure you also calculate how much you can pay and what upgrade for the coverage you can get. Do not just take any words of the agent for granted.
- Create one new email address you can use specifically to receive all information about your policy. When you buy car insurance online, you will definitely get a lot of emails. If you want to be able to manage all your emails better (especially if you also deal with a lot of emails from work), you should have a specific email address to handle all those emails.
- Create a fixed way to communicate with your agents, which both of you agree with. For example, fix an email address or cell phone numbers that you both use to communicate to each other about your policy. Also, if you lose insurance card, you must also determine what replacement or temporary proof you can show to police officer if you are involved in an accident.
- Design schedule for payment. If you feel like overwhelmed in managing your schedule, and if you have no problem with financial situation, you can just pay upfront for 6 months and even 12 months. Besides more practical, you can have better chance to get discount for your coverage. Also, there are now many payment options such as through bank transfer, mobile banking, or e-banking. Choose one that you think is the most convenient.
Besides taking care of these aspects, you must also consider using extra support from certain online services in order to make everything easier.
Online Referral and Quote Services for Car Insurance
Before you buy car insurance online, you can use online referral service. This service offers free quotes and referrals for customers who want information about what every insurance company offers, especially insurance companies near your address. By using this service, you can make the car insurance companiesoffer the best coverage prices for you, since referral service puts various insurance companies in competition, giving you more advantages in price negotiation compared to if you do cold call to insurance companies one by one.
Referral service will also help you to get first hand information about list of possible coverage prices, helping you in calculating budget and payment plan when you finally apply for car insurance. To buy car insurance online is practical, but you must also do your homework to make sure that you get good offers.