Quote Comparision website

marketguy · 07-23-2008, 06:17 PM

I am looking into this for myself

How do these quote comparison websites work? Do they have setup partnerships with all these insurance companies where they can instantly get a quote using some kind of software? Or do they get the information directly from a database.. or infinitly worse do they ask for quotes from each company using a script that poses them as the actual customer??

I asked for a quote from one "compare quotes" website and now every insurance company under then sun is sending me email. It seems to me like the website (I dont want to publicly trash them, PM me if you are dying to know the website though) is filling out quote requests for all these companies and getting paid 8.95 (or whatever they give) from each real company. Seems lucrative, but also seems illegal.

If it is illegal its not that hard to track unless they(Compare quote company) mask or otherwise change their IP address each time before submitting a quote request.

Forgive my inexperience (incompetence?) but I was just wondering how they can do/get away with this.

-Nick

nc health agent · 07-23-2008, 06:23 PM

Nick what markets are you in ? location that is, im wondering why you were called by every carrier....maybe you are in a saturated area.

insurancemaster · 07-15-2009, 08:13 PM

Let me try to explain the point of insurance comparing sites. The reason you are getting calls from different insurance carriers is because the insurance comparison site is selling your information to insurance agents to compete for your business.

It's the only way I would want to have it. You might get a quote from Allstate for $240.00 a month and StateFarm says they will give you insurance for $195.50. The whole point to a website offereing free insurance quotes if for insurance agents to fight for your business.

There are a ton of insurance affiliate websites out there like insureme.com, netquote.com, esurance.com, allstate.com, and the list goes on. What they do is pay you lets say $10.00 for each quote, and they send that quote to around five insurance agents and they compete for your business.

Now the insurance agents usually pay a monthly fee to be signed up to a lead generation service, so it works out for both parties. It is not illegal they all know that the lead is being sent to another competitor, but they are all trying to fight for your business.