I tried out three sites:  http://www.insurance.com/,  http://www.netquote.com/,  and http://www.insure.com/.

Each site allows you to obtain on-line quotes from one or more auto insurance carriers.  For each site, I input the same basic information about the vehicle, drivers, location, type of coverage, etc. and asked for a quote.   

Here are my findngs:

Lowest Auto Insurance Quote

Let’s start with the most important question:  which site gave me the lowest quote? 

I was amazed by the variance between sites.  The lowest quote I received was $466.70 for six months of coverage; the highest was $1,352!  See - it pays to shop around for insurance. 

So how did the sites rank?

http://www.insure.com/ gave the low quote of $466.70 from Geico Insurance.

http://www.insurance.com/ came in second with a respectable, but still high, $580 from MetLife Auto.

http://www.netquote.com/ came in third with quotes of $609 from Esurance, $762 from Travelers, and a whopping $1,352 from some outfit called Deerbrook Insurance Company, which I’ve never heard of. 

Time to Receive Insurance Quote:

All the sites were surprisingly fast and easy to use.  Before getting an online quote, you will need to have basic identifying information with you, including makes and models for the cars you want to insure, as well as the names, birthdates, and social security numbers for the drivers of each car.  It also helps to have your current insurance card, so you can ask for a quote on the same type of coverage with the same deductible.  That way, you are comparing apples to apples. 

Once I had this information, it took me no longer than ten minutes to get a quote from each site.  In just under half an hour, I had competing quotes from three different sites and more than 10 different insurers.

The edge in this category has to go to http://www.insure.com/.  

The user interface was more intuitive and easier to use than the others and I was able to input information more quickly.  The site also seemed to load and move from screen to screen faster than the others.  From start to finish, I had a quote in less than five minutes.

One gripe:  unlike http://www.insure.com/ and http://www.insurance.com/, http://www.netquote.com/ did not return insurance quotes directly to my screen.  Rather, it told me to wait for an email from some unidentified agents who would be sending the quotes.  Within a few minutes, I received an email quote directly from AIG and multiple quotes from an outfit called “Answer Financial.”  None of this bothered me too much, until the Answer Financial email required me to re-input and confirm some of the same information I’d just given to http://www.netquote.com/.  Seems like they should be able to streamline the process like the other sites.

Flexibility/Number of Options

Setting aside this slightly frustrating feature, http://www.netquote.com/ wins hands down in terms of the number of quotes received. From this site alone, I received nine quotes from nine different insurance companies. 

The next best was http://www.insurance.com/, which gave me four quotes.

http://www.insure.com/ brings up the rear with only one quote.  And although it was the best quote by more than $100, I was surprised that it returned only one insurance quote.  The site’s home page boasts “Insure.com Over 200 Companies.  Point, click, buy, save.“  But when you ask for a quote, you are redirected to Geico.com to input your information.  I thought maybe this was only for my home state, California, but, even when you ask for quotes in Colorado or North Carolina, you are redicted to Geico.com. 

Since Geico gave the best quote, it’s hard to complain, but it does make you wonder . . . .

Some Final Thoughts 

It pays to check multiple sites.  I found that different sites return different quotes from the same carrier.  For example, http://www.insurance.com/ returned a quote of $644 from Esurance.com and $782.60 from Travelers.  http://www.netquote.com/ returned a rate of $609 from Esurance.com and $762 from Travelers. 

It pays to shop around for insurance.  In less than half an hour, I received quotes that would save me from $76-$214 every six months on my car insurance.  That translates to an hourly rate of from $152-$428 for one hour of work.  To my way of thinking, that’s a pretty good use of your time . . . .