Third generation insurance purchases have arrived!
Traditional insurance shopping has been revolutionized with the introduction of online insurance quote systems, both through online direct insurers and online brokers. For many years this remained the only way to shop for insurance online, but did not maximize the full potential of what the Internet could really do for the customer. The 3rd generation of insurance websites is now here, and that means great news for consumers.
The old days.
In the (bad) old days, people had to phone around various insurance companies to get quotes for their auto insurance. This was a long process, but due to the variations in insurance premium from company to company, it was very often worth the time. Instead of going directly to insurance companies, many consumers preferred to use insurance brokers who would do the shopping for them. In theory, this was great, except for one thing – different brokers might charge different rates for the same insurance products. To compare insurance, consumers still had to phone around a number of brokers, many of whom only worked normal daytime office hours.
The internet revolution (sort of).
With the growing popularity of the Internet, things looked better. A number of internet-based insurers and brokers have offered the ability to shop around 24 hours a day and find cheaper insurance, with online discounts being offered to consumers. While this allowed people to buy coverage in the evenings, they still faced the same old problem that different broker sites would quote different prices for the same insurance.
The aggregator arrives.
Lately, a new insurance shopping website has arrived. These sites (aggregator or comparison sites) allow you to fill out a single set of quote forms, and instead of having to visit many different brokers' websites and fill in the same information over and over again - they do it for you. . Sites like Quotezone.co.uk do this. You enter your details like you would on any other insurance site, but instead of getting quotes from a broker, you can get over 20 insurance quotes in one place. So, for 2 minutes of work, you save yourself filling out forms on 20 websites and get all the prices in real time one after another.
