Insurance costs in Canada are rising. In fact, surveys have shown that many people have been overpaying for their insurance, mostly because they do not fully understand the market.

Thankfully, there are ways for you to try and bring down insurance costs. And the easiest way to do that is to take advantage of websites that allow you to compare insurance rates.

What is a Rate Comparison Website?

In the past, if you wanted an insurance policy, you would need to contact multiple companies. This has a few different downsides, including:

• Calling and communicating with various companies take a lot of time.
• You can’t always be sure that you’re getting the best insurance rates possible from the company.
• You tend to only contact heavily-advertised insurers, and they almost never offer the best deals on insurance policies.

Clearly, this really isn’t a good way to search for insurance. It’s too cumbersome, and the entire process wasn’t designed with the consumer’s best interests in mind.

In contrast, comparison websites like Rate Genie make it extremely easy to compare insurance rates from multiple providers at once. This cuts down the amount of time that it takes to search for a policy, and it ensures that you’re always getting the best possible price.

How can you compare insurance rates using these websites?

The process is actually very simple. For instance, let’s say you’re searching for life insurance. All you have to do is visit a site like Rate Genie and do the following:

• Head to the life insurance part of the website (or whatever insurance policy you’re looking for)
• Answer several questions about the type of policy you are interested in.
• Go through the search results to see and compare offers from several different insurance providers.

This is simpler than the old method of doing things. This way, it takes mere minutes to get dozens of life insurance options. Searching for multiple companies and trying to extract pricing information on your own could easily take you hours. Chances are high that you’ll end up giving up and settling before you find the policy that offers the best value.

Often, insurance comparison websites will introduce you to companies that you may not have heard of. Don’t worry, though. Working with these companies is generally safe. As long as you stick to trusted comparison websites, you can rest assured that the companies being featured have been vetted.

A lot of these smaller and not-as-well-known insurance companies do not have huge overheads or massive advertising budgets to deal with. As such, the costs of running their business are relatively smaller, and such cost savings can be passed onto the customers.

Tailor Your Insurance

Another major pro of using these sites is that they make it possible for you to tailor your insurance according to your unique needs. What’s more, you can expect it to take mere minutes to do so.

For example; if you’re not happy with the insurance prices offered, you can easily change your deductible or remove an add-on to get a price you’re comfortable with. You’ll know almost instantly how this will impact the cost of your insurance. In contrast, doing this by contacting insurance companies directly  (particularly over the telephone) is inconvenient, time-consuming,  and to some extent, frustrating.

Why do these websites offer the best possible insurance prices?

While everything we mentioned previously will help you enjoy huge savings on your insurance premiums, there is one major benefit to using these comparison sites. And it all boils down to having multiple vendors in one platform.

If you contact an insurer directly, they’ll know that you’re probably in contact with a limited number of insurance providers. It’s also likely that they’re the only ones you’re in contact with. As a result, they don’t have to be too competitive with the price they offer. They know that there’s a pretty strong chance that you’ll end up using their services, no matter the price they charge.

When a person uses a comparison website, the insurers do not have this luxury. They know that they will be competing with dozens of other insurance providers, which means they need to offer the absolute best price. Otherwise, they will stand no chance of gaining business. This is why you’ll often find that insurers will have different prices on comparison sites and their own websites.

Conclusion

If you want the best prices on your insurance premiums, always use insurance comparison websites like Rate Genie. You could potentially save hundreds of dollars per year on your insurance by going down this route.

What other tips are you using to get cheap insurance rates? Share your thoughts with us below!