Is it cheaper to buy car insurance online or through an agent?

So is it cheaper to buy insurance online or is it cheaper to buy insurance through an agent well that's a little complicated but i've got the direct answer for you and then i've kind of got a rebuttal to that because there's one company that i'm aware of that actually does the opposite so let's dive right into it the reason i say it's a little complicated is because 


 There's really three main pieces of ways you can buy insurance so there's through online which could be considered the cheapest route but then you have to know everything you have to know exactly what coverages you want what you need and the online systems aren't that intuitive or at least they're designed to kind of package things 

 So that you get the bundles that the companies want you to get and it's fairly difficult to break them apart and then the question at the end of the process is if you have to call them to change the bundle and have them fix it there's usually someone you can call but do you lose that discount the second part is where the agent is involved where it's an exclusive agent 

 And they handle that specific company and they sell that specific company and even if you buy it online nowadays they even give you to that agent as a customer and then they handle your book they just get paid on the back end a little bit differently and less because they didn't get the lead or your information and the third way is through independent agents where they work with tons of companies so they have to fight the 

 Companies to get the commissions at the levels they want so the biggest question that we're answering is does that agent if you go through them and we go through let's say progressive or aaa or if we go straight to aaa.com or progressive.com or any of these companies which one is the least expensive do we pay a fee for going through that agent that's kind of where there was a little 

 Bit of a insurance joke going around where there was a commercial kind of rebuttaling another commercial about getting your hands out of my pocket taking my money essentially what they were talking about because they had you in their hands so to speak so that all spurred around because they all know that when you go directly to an agent 

 It's usually not less expensive mainly because what happens is if you go direct to com or 1 800 numbers and we're calling aaa ourselves or calling progressive ourselves or calling anybody ourselves or typing them in that there's no difference in commission what they've done is the companies pocket that extra money that extra 100 or whatever the case is and they just make more money 

 And that goes towards the build out of those websites and the hiring the service people they're essentially you're technically going through agents so to speak but they're not really agents because they're not trained the same they don't do it constantly where they have to focus on how to get better and build more value they're more based on come in clock in do what you do go home 

 And it doesn't affect you because it's not their book of business it's the companies that they're selling the agents are more involved and more focused because it's their book they get paid renewals and renewal commissions over and over and over so it makes sense for them to take care of you but not only that it makes sense for them to give you the better coverages without going overboard because there's a legal aspect 

 And a code of ethics that they have to follow and that's where you see some of the negative reviews where some of them don't follow that so don't worry i'm going to go with the last part and tell you the other company that does the opposite where you can buy it online that's cheaper and i've actually done a few reviews on them so you'll get to see that as well but what happens is when the agents get involved 

 It can be a really good experience especially if you're going through independent or exclusive they're both fine it's just that if you're going exclusive which is your all states your state farms they only sell one product you've got aaa does have exclusive and independent agents they do both so some are just aaa and when you go through those guys 

 That's all they can offer you what people got frustrated with is they didn't want to keep picking up the phone and spending four hours in a day doing all that leg work unfortunately if you're in a state that state farm is competitive or farmers is competitive or those companies are competitive like geico they're their own company and so your only option is to call each one and find out 

 More often than not as we've gotten a little bit lazier or we just don't want to do the extra work we've got other things that we're focused on then the exclusive agent comes into play where they work with five to six to seven companies actually if you look down the link below there's a quote you could fill out and that company works with up to 17 companies at the timing of this video 

 And so you call one agent or you fill one thing online they just click some basic data and then they want to talk to you and it's like a 10-minute phone call 15-minute phone call max pending what you actually need as far as coverage if you're adding a boat and a motorcycle and a home and all that that's a half hour phone call right so just if you give it enough time or what most people do is the ones that 

 Are busy they'll just call them up they'll say hey great i'm going to email you to my deck pages and then they just send you their deck pages and let you work on it on the background so those companies don't mind doing that they actually prefer to see what coverages you have so they compare and see if it's competitive and most of them are going to give you a really honest answer but those agents 

 You don't pay anything extra to have that benefit the reason they're doing it is because they're gonna get renewals they're building a future where if they have a thousand to two thousand customers they're set they're in the six figure income and they're often fined and they live in their world where you're only paying a small portion of it which you would have already paid to the main company anyways so who's the 

 One company that i know of that does this where you can bypass all of this and get a discount well it's progressive progressive is getting ahead of the trend which i'll actually link a video at the end of this that goes over that and one of the things that they do is they'll give you up to an eight percent discount if you go online and buy online and do the whole process on your own there's an actual discount now that 

 Discount i believe falls off the following year or at the renewal so keep in mind you may save a hundred to two hundred dollars but what's the given the take having that advice or that agent not necessarily just giving you the right coverages but when problems arise and you have a claim that you don't agree with there's nobody to fight for you who would you want on your side 

 You the guy that knows what you're doing and called progressive or went online and did progressive save some money got a great policy and that was it you didn't need them and now you have a problem you're fighting for that claim or the guy or company that has written 10 million dollars worth of business with them and now there's a problem with one of their customers and they don't agree it's not that they're going to tell them 

 Different answers there's going to be the same fight either way but at the end of that process who do you think is going to have more leeway in that conversation and i know some of you are going to comment below that shady that's wrong this is the way it's not even the fact of right and wrong we're not talking about that situation it's the fact that who has the right 

 Phone number to call who can talk to the district manager who can talk to the guy above that guy you can get to the supervisor and that supervisor supervisor and maybe there's four other supervisors that you have to figure out or just hire a lawyer to do it but at the end of that process this guy can bypass all of that and go right to the right person so it's a matter of knowing which route 

 To take not necessarily having leeway to say well because i have 10 million dollars of business i think i should get a better claim for my guy that's not the situation this guy is built also off of claims so he's not apt to falsify anything one you lose your license it's unethical and the fact that you're doing that hurts your reputation with that company so when you renew your licensing or 

 Renew your book with those companies they can choose to end that contract so they have a little bit of an obligation as well so long story short sure there's an online discount shoot there's even a company called root insurance the video's up here if you want to learn about them that goes over that that actually they only do online now i actually love progressive and i will show you a video here where i 

 Ended up doing a quote with them and saved about 52 just short of on my car insurance it was crazy because i've shopped multiple years and this was the first time i actually got a really big discount there was a test drive involved and i was testing out a program but at the end of that whole process with that eight percent discount for the online quoting and online purchase 

 I was able to get a really good rate with them so i'll link that video here if you guys want to see that otherwise there's a ton of options if you like your agent and your that's the best route you can ask them straight out what their commissions are in most states they have to disclose any earning incomes that they have so if you want to see what portion is going to them and what portion is going 

 To you you have that option and most of the time they're going to tell you that i can't tell you for sure if some states don't allow that but i'm pretty sure i know when you actually sign paperwork that usually there's a disclosure that doesn't tell the exact amount but it tells how the agent actually gets paid so at this point here's where you guys 

 Can help if you stayed i love it let me know in the comments below but also tell me of a company that you know of that may offer an online discount i can tell you that some of the companies that i've worked for in the past that were more kind of exclusive but they gave an online discount when you started the quote online but it carried over if you called them so you got the best of both worlds you 

 Could start the quote online get that six to eight percent off and then make a phone call to the 800 number and they'll pull up that quote and then edit it to make sure all the coverages are correct you don't lose that discount when you go that process would be interesting to find out if you guys have somebody or know of anyone definitely put those in the comments below otherwise i appreciate you guys stopping by hit the like 

 Thumbs up if you're interested in more insurance tips to save you time and money definitely subscribe otherwise i'm mark with think insurance i'll see you in the next one 

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