There are several ways you can compare auto insurance and your choice of method would boil down to how much time you have and how desperate you are to get the best deal at a price favorable to your budget.

The most time consuming method would be to do old school method and that would mean sitting down in front a phone and calling everyone on the phone book. Or you could visit different insurance offices and spend a lot of time listening to insurance agents make their spiel. The chance of getting out alive from these meetings and with your wallet intact is almost zero. But if you're retired and just want to make use of your idle better outside of the house, dropping these offices will ensure you have at least free coffee and someone to chat with.

Most of us don't have this luxury and the pressure to close an auto insurance plan is something we just want to get over and done with. Here then are other options for those who are busy but want to pay the least possible under the most comprehensive plan available.

Free Online Insurance Quotes

Start asking for companies to send you free insurance quotes. All you will need to provide are the basic information such as car model and year. Most online insurance companies will have no problem sending you the basic rates, although you should expect them to try to entice you with a more comprehensive plan. Keep in mind though that the quoted rates may change depending on your credit history and any negative history on your driving skills, accidents, age, even place of residence.

Ask Around

Ask for recommendations from people you trust about which insurance company to contact. Based on number of replies you get, you can already target specific companies. The logic behind this plan is if your trusted family members and friends are happy with their auto insurance, then you probably will. You could even get special discounts if you ask for the name of the insurance agent and inform that person who referred you. This eliminates the need to compare insurance companies and leaves you with having to compare rates and features.

Look at Ads in Newspapers and Magazines

You could browse through your daily newspaper for special promotions. It's important to consider this method because you may miss it when searching online. There are companies that use traditional media first before marketing online.

The Features To Compare

In comparing the quotations you receive from different insurance companies, compare the following:

Monthly payments

Deductibles

Accredited shops

Special bundle packages

Payment centers like places convenient for you

Penalties

The most important of all is calling them up or emailing them and waiting for their response. You must have confidence that the company will treat you as a VIP, according you professional treatment and due respect. If they make you wait for the reply or keep you on hold, don't even bother considering them. If they can't treat you right before signing the policy, then you can't expect good treatment after you signed the insurance plan.

Finally, don't make the decision right away. Think about it for at least a couple of days. It's important to be happy with your decision because if the time comes that you need to make a claim, everything would have already been ironed out.

Auto insurance. What do you need to know about auto insurance? First, you need to know you need to have auto insurance if you drive a car. If you already drive a car, chances are that you have auto insurance and may simply be looking for a way to save money on cheap auto insurance. This is a real possibility for you, as auto insurance quotes do vary from company to company, and it is easy to compare quotes online.

To compare auto insurance quotes online, just enter "auto insurance" into the search window of a search engine. A recent entry on Google just turned up 273 million hits for "auto insurance". That's probably more than you have time to look through, but it shows you how much information about auto insurance is available online when you do a search. Fortunately for us, all search engines list the most widely viewed search results near the top of the list, so you will be able to save time by looking at only the first million entries. Or maybe the first 5.

Another way to focus the list of search results is to add a term to the search query. For example, a search for "auto insurance Portland" reduces the number of entries in the list to only 4.7 million. Much easier to search through than 273 million. And "auto insurance Portland Oregon" reduces the search list to only 1.8 million. Of course, the more important benefit of the extra terms, such as your location, is that the top items in the search list will be agents and information about auto insurance in your area. If you actually are looking for Portland auto insurance, you don't need to know anything about car insurance in Los Angeles. Car insurance laws vary from state to state, and of course the rates in a very large city will be very different from the rates in a mid sized city.

Another benefit to doing an online search is that it is easy to compare rates from different insurance companies. Many insurance companies allow you to compare rates at their own website nowadays. Other sites allow you to compare quotes from different companies at one common web site. These sites save you the trouble of doing a search for numerous web sites in order to find the best quote possible. They will ask you for basic information about your insurance needs, and allow you to compare quotes of different insurance companies. All at one web site. A web site like this does the search in the background for you, gathering quotes from each of the company web sites that offer auto insurance in your area.

So, auto insurance is something you need if you drive a car. Cheap auto insurance is available if you compare quotes from different companies. Lots of info is available via an online search to allow you to compare quotes for auto insurance. Start today, and save yourself money on auto insurance.