Times are tough and budgets are getting squeezed tighter and tighter every month. To save money, today’s consumers are becoming savvier when it comes to comparison shopping. Coupons are more popular than ever and we try to get every discount that we are entitled to, including saving money on auto insurance. Insurance agents tell you that the only way to reduce your auto insurance premium is to reduce your coverage. Murphy’s Law tells us that this could lead to disastrous results! Another way to save on premiums is to do some comparison shopping with car insurance brokers.
So what is an insurance broker, another name for an insurance agent? Actually the two jobs are pretty similar; they both have to pass their state’s Property Casualty licensing exam and they both sell insurance policies for a commission. It’s where they differ that can save you hundreds of dollars a year.
The insurance agent that you probably used to buy your existing car insurance works either as an employee of your insurance company or as an independent contractor. The main thing to consider is that he works on the insurance company’s behalf. On the other hand, an insurance broker does not work for any single insurance company, he works for you.
With your permission, car insurance brokers work to get policy quotes from several insurance companies for you to compare side by side. In exchange for this convenience, your car insurance broker will receive a commission that is built into the price of the premium so there are no surprise charges. If using a cheap car insurance broker is so easy why isn’t every one using one? Either they don’t know the difference between an agent and a broker or they happen to enjoy spending hours on the telephone, repeating the same information over and over again. Now that you know, you can decide for yourself.
