If you're ready to start getting some auto insurance quotes, you may dread the time it's going to take you to pull out the phone book, dial up agent after agent, read off the same information, and wait for your information.  This can be a long and tedious process, but of course it's necessary as no two insurance carriers are the same - you can get quotes that are literally hundreds of dollars different for the same car, the same driver, the same location.  Getting a variety of auto insurance quotes is necessary to get the best deal around, but is there any way to bypass all this boring tedium and get many quotes at once?  If you do this online, how do you know you're getting the best rate there is?

The internet does allow you to get a variety of auto insurance quotes online and on some sites this is very handy; you punch in the same information just once and you get three or four comparison quotes.  You may have heard the advertisements for geico.com, esurance.com, and so many others.  There are a few precautions to think about however.  For one, while these websites will ask you the most important questions they may not actually be able to adjust your information accordingly if you have exceptional circumstances.  As an example, some companies will give you a small discount if you're insuring a second car that is only used for errands during the day or is rarely used at all.  Most online companies that give you auto insurance quotes assume that any car you have will be used for commuting back and forth to work.  But for those who have a second car or those who work from their homes and really don't drive that much, where is your discount?  If you talk to a real live person when getting your auto insurance quotes you can ask outright for such discounts and see what they say.  Also, it's hard to tell sometimes if those online companies are giving you accurate information about their competitors and their rates as well.  You want to trust that the auto insurance quotes they claim are from their competitors are actually true, but this is hard to judge sometimes.

Many companies are now offering to provide auto insurance quotes from their own websites, and sometimes it's better to visit these individual sites one at a time than to rely on the information you get from a competing company.  No one likes to spend an afternoon calling around for auto insurance quotes, and going online can sometimes be just as tedious, but remember that you're saving yourself some money in the long run.  If it means that you can find a rate or insurance carrier that is a few hundred dollars cheaper than what you're paying now or cheaper than the last quote you got, isn't it worth it?  So think of shopping around for auto insurance quotes as being an investment in savings.