Protect yourself - Insurance shopping on the Web - Internet/Web/Online Service Information

Home Office Computing, Nov, 1997 by Victoria Hall Smith

Live the American dream! Be your own boss! Set your own schedule! Weren't those some of the advantages to entrepreneurship flying around your brain when you decided to "make the big move?" Or how about this one: Waste time and money while you attend to all the necessary but tedious administrative details!

Shopping for insurance is one of the worst chores we inherit when we strike out on our own. It's on my List of Administrative Details That Make Me Question My Sanity. It was so easy when I was an employee. I had two choices: I either accepted the plan or I didn't. Some faceless minion in human resources was paid to spend hours, days, maybe even weeks negotiating a plan that offered employees decent coverage without breaking the company bank. Now that I'm both company and employee, I'm faced with more choices than ants at a church picnic.

In need of health, auto, and homeowner's insurance, I decided to turn to the Internet for a package deal. I figured that by going online, I could compare rates in half the time it would take me using the yellow pages and a phone. Right?

Searching for "insurance" with any of the search engines or directories produced a familiar result: too much general information, none of which was specific to my needs. I turned up everything from advice sites to online calculators that helped determine how much insurance I needed to buy. Few insurance company sites, however, give actual quotes, preferring instead to help me find a local agent. John Deaner, founder of CyberApp (www.cyberapp.com), explains that state laws vary significantly, with stiff fines for selling to customers in areas in which the company is not licensed, hence the carriers' reluctance to give online quotes. (CyberApp is attempting to bring together online agents so consumers can readily find a local representative to help with their needs.)

Educate Yourself

Even if you consider yourself an informed consumer, refresh your memory with the minor details of your insurance coverage before you start shopping. Sites abound with useful information. Some of these sites are portions of carriers' Web pages; others are offered by third parties, either industry-sponsored or independent.

The best site that I found for in-depth but accessible information is the Insurance News Network (www. insure.com). A vast resource, INN provides factual and unbiased consumer information about life, home, and auto insurance. Its lengthy section on coverage for home-based entrepreneurs should be required reading for any business owner. According to INN, 40 percent of us without business insurance think our homeowner's policy will protect us when, in actuality, said protection is very limited. INN also includes the complete Standard & Poor's rating for more than 2,100 insurance companies as well as claims-paying ability reports, auto-by-auto crash test results, actual accident numbers, and theft statistics.

If you want to dig deeper into the financial health of a prospective insurer, check out A.M. Best (www.ambest. com). At this respected financial fitness ratings service, you'll find evaluations explained in layperson's terms. Keep in mind that each report costs $19.95.

Bigger Isn't Better

Because I was looking for a package deal, I decided to visit sites of large carriers that were most likely to have multiple lines of insurance. A package deal can offer significant savings, usually a 5 percent discount for purchasing a second line, 10 percent for the third line, and so on.

State Farm (www.statefarm.com) offered all the lines that I needed, but the site provided no rate information or quotes. Instead, State Farm directed me to a simple search engine that produces names and numbers of local authorized agents. The result was much the same for the Hartford site (www.thehartford.com), Fireman's Fund (www. the-fund.com), and All-state (www.allstate.com). Although I appreciated being relieved of the extra step of searching through a phone book, I'd still have to call several agents and supply the same information many times over--exactly what I wanted to avoid.

Nationwide Insurance (www. nationwide.com) has a colorful map delineating those states for which there are online quotes. The eastern third of the country, however, is excluded. Since I live in New Hampshire, I was stymied again. After submitting an online application for auto and homeowner's insurance at the Traveler's site (www.travelers.com), I waited for a local agent to call with the quote. I'm still waiting.

Actually, my waiting list isn't limited to large insurance corporations that help small-business owners buy insurance. I still haven't heard from such nonprofit organizations as the National Association for the Self-Employed (www.nase.org) and the American Society of Women Entrepreneurs (women.aswe.orc/aswe).

Think Globally, Act Locally

Obviously my bigger is better plan for getting an online quote was a flop, so I decided to search for local agencies ready to do business over the Net. Hoping that a specialized site might lead me to a general agent, I visited www.auto-insurance. com, which had a great driving safety quiz. It was a welcome break to watch parts fall off a Porsche with each incorrect answer, but the site didn't net me a local cyberagent.