What's the best way to find market rates for vehicles + homeowners? I'm in Georgia, land of mostly rust free used cars, if that makes any difference.
Edit: have also posted locally on Nextdoor. I am interested mostly about what service(s) exist and if it's better than online price tools.
Call an independent broker. They have access to companies that don't pay for Superbowl ads.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Interesting. I've never used one. Is there an official title for those people, or some trade association? Anything specific to know or avoid when dealing with one?
Look under insurance agent or broker. Like Keith said they will usually have an array of companies to shop from to find you a good price for the coverage you need. My mother has been handling my insurance through her agency for 25 years and checks with several companies regularly to save us money. Because of how companies set rates what’s good for someone else could be bad for you. I’ve been with Encompass for years and they’ve been great but when she looked for my brother they weren’t as good a deal.
Keep in mind that insurance laws vary a lot by state. My experience in CA has been that an insurance broker is a great way to shop around among the smaller companies, but that the big ones (State Farm, Farmers, and maybe Allstate) only work through their own agents. So if you're in the risk category where the smaller companies make sense, then that's a great choice. For me that was when I was single and in my 20s/early 30s. Then I got married and somewhere around age 35 the balance shifted and the big companies became cheaper than the little ones.
So my advice is to call a broker to get one quote, but to compare it with a quote from a State Farm/Farmer's/etc agent as well.
Good info. What I'm trying to figure out is whether all companies' info is available from a broker, or only some - like the way Southwest airplane tickets can only be cross shopped directly.
I haven't yet encountered a broker who has been able to quote every company out there. The major companies I do online. For the smaller ones the best I've been able to do is to get recommendations from who my friends and colleagues use, and then go from there. My independent agent got me a great deal a few years ago, but then this year I found myself needing to change agents after she apparently stopped doing business with my current company.
It seems like there are too many companies for one agent to contact all of them. It probably wouldn’t hurt to call a few agents and see what they come up with.
Definitely check out Erie, we have our vehicles and home insurance through them. Great company to work with and they offer volume discounts for those of us who like cars and therefore own several. 
I'll add that you may need to shop agents just like you shop carriers. The local independent agent back in IL has a very used-car-salesman vibe & it became obvious quickly that his only prerogative was finding a policy for us that made him the most money. Conversely, our agent in MS frequently contacts us without prompting because she's found a cheaper option for us. Very much a night & day difference between the two.
I'm in Georgia and I used PointeNorth Insurance Group to get hooked up with an independent insurer that cost half of what Geico was reaming me.
Another vote for an independent agent. Several years back he actually called me when progressive changed the wording and pricing for insuring my wagon. He had already checked around and found another company whos contract wording was much better and saved me about $100 every 6 months.
In reply to OHSCrifle :
Progressive insurance claims they will give you competitors rates.
But please remember the real reason for insurance. If the rate you select doesn’t really protect you why buy it?
Rates are one thing customer renewal after a claim is very important.
EastCoastMojo said:Definitely check out Erie, we have our vehicles and home insurance through them. Great company to work with and they offer volume discounts for those of us who like cars and therefore own several.
I second this. I have them right now they're reasonable and pretty good to deal with.
codrus said:Keep in mind that insurance laws vary a lot by state. My experience in CA has been that an insurance broker is a great way to shop around among the smaller companies, but that the big ones (State Farm, Farmers, and maybe Allstate) only work through their own agents. So if you're in the risk category where the smaller companies make sense, then that's a great choice. For me that was when I was single and in my 20s/early 30s. Then I got married and somewhere around age 35 the balance shifted and the big companies became cheaper than the little ones.
So my advice is to call a broker to get one quote, but to compare it with a quote from a State Farm/Farmer's/etc agent as well.
Interesting, I've had a different experience. I'm in a very low risk pool now, so my broker puts me with companies that only cherrypick the low risk people and thus don't have to subsidize the high risk. Means lower rates for me. We moved my wife from State Farm to a below-the-radar company and saved a huge chunk of change. IIRC we got our house insurance for free.
It's also worth noting that if you need to make a claim, the broker works for you. If you go through an agent of a company, they work for the company. That's useful unless you deal with insurance claims all the time. I've seen some sketchy moves on the part of in-house agents as they try to minimize the payout.
Erie doesn't serve Georgia. I had them when I lived in OH.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
My wife was with State Farm. When we got married her broker gave her grief about adding me to her policy because he felt my job made me an accident risk. I convinced her to drop them and switch to mine. I've put in a few claims with them including a rather expensive hospital stay after a car accident and hitting a deer and doing $11k in damage and they were very fair to deal with unlike some of the bigger name companies I dealt with when I was working in body shops
slefain said:I'm in Georgia and I used PointeNorth Insurance Group to get hooked up with an independent insurer that cost half of what Geico was reaming me.
Thanks for this tip!
Keith Tanner said:codrus said:Keep in mind that insurance laws vary a lot by state. My experience in CA has been that an insurance broker is a great way to shop around among the smaller companies, but that the big ones (State Farm, Farmers, and maybe Allstate) only work through their own agents. So if you're in the risk category where the smaller companies make sense, then that's a great choice. For me that was when I was single and in my 20s/early 30s. Then I got married and somewhere around age 35 the balance shifted and the big companies became cheaper than the little ones.
So my advice is to call a broker to get one quote, but to compare it with a quote from a State Farm/Farmer's/etc agent as well.
Interesting, I've had a different experience. I'm in a very low risk pool now, so my broker puts me with companies that only cherrypick the low risk people and thus don't have to subsidize the high risk. Means lower rates for me. We moved my wife from State Farm to a below-the-radar company and saved a huge chunk of change. IIRC we got our house insurance for free.
It's also worth noting that if you need to make a claim, the broker works for you. If you go through an agent of a company, they work for the company. That's useful unless you deal with insurance claims all the time. I've seen some sketchy moves on the part of in-house agents as they try to minimize the payout.
Yeah, that's probably part of the state-by-state things. Auto insurance is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the US (IMHO because the actuarial tables that underly it are very non-intutive and so people perceive them as being unfair and say "there should be a law!"). California has a whole list of things that they aren't allowed to use to determine rates, it's likely that Colorado does as well, that they aren't the same, and that drives significant differences in how the business gets run.
As far as the agent thing goes State Farm agents aren't involved in the claims process, that's all done at the corporate level. (well, State Farm is a "mutual insurance company", which isn't technically a corporation, but...). That said, I've never had a State Farm claims person be anything but helpful, they've always been helpful, straightforward, and honest about the claims process.
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