I started by looking at JD Power ratings of insurance companies and was suprised to see that the insurers that I see ads for are all pretty low in the rankings. I chose the top 2 rated on that list, which were Amica Mutual and Erie Insurance.

I also chose a couple others companies to get quotes from, based on recommendations from friends. Those were AAA, Nationwide Insurance, and Esurance.

Before you go to get a quote, you will need:

1. The VIN numbers of all vehicles you need covered
2. The Social Security numbers of all drivers that need covered, along with birthdays

I was able to immediately rule out Esurance, because the quote they gave me was a total joke; it was just so ridiculously expensive. AAA was the cheapest quote, and it wound up being $1000 cheaper per year than Esurance was. Also, I think AAA had the best online quote system out of all those I tried.

With Nationwide Insurance, I called a local agency to get a quote, and could never get in touch with the agent they paired me with. He called me once and left a voice mail, saying: “call me back in the morning, after 10:00am.” How can I get a job with that kind of availability? I called him back in that timeframe, and of course had to leave a voicemail – during business hours, mind you – and I still never got a call back. I eventually called them again a couple days later, and the secretary had to give me the quote because my would-be agent wasn’t in the office. That doesn’t give me much confidence that he’ll be there for me when I have a claim.

At Amica, I got through their whole online quoting process, and made it through to the end, only to get this error message

Our system is temporarily unable to handle your request.

Nice. 9 times out of 10, that would be end-of-the-line for me. But, since I liked the company, I called up their hotline and did a phone quote. The CSR was a complete b-tch and rushed me through all the questions. You need to know all kinds of esoteric facts about your car. But, I later got a call back from a different Amica direct agent, who was extremely helpful… it was then that I realized that the original CSR had assumed that I wanted towing, rental reimbursement, and other garbage that I explicitly told her not to include. Ultimately, I decided to not go with Amica mainly because of the signifcantly higher rates. Not nearly as bad as Esurance, but it was more than I wanted to pay.

The Erie Insurance website was pretty much a waste of time. All they have for an online presense is a “quick quote” which gave me a ridiculous range (my expected yearly payment could differ by about $1000). Then, they don’t have somebody call you, and they don’t have a central number to call to buy direct… you get dumped to this “search for agent” screen. So, I guess I’m supposed to choose an agent based on proximity? I would think most people would like to go with QUALIFICATIONS over how close I am to an agent. Anyway, I called an agent, and he wound up actually giving me advise I could use.

I wound up going with Erie Insurance, based on:

1. being comfortable with the agent I spoke with: I made sure he had a ton of experience, and would help me in the event that I had to file a claim.
2. competitive rates
3. high ratings from JDPower and AMBest