Car Insurance

IF YOU COULD LINE UP identical insurance policies a glass display case and dangle a price tag from each one, you’d uncover the insurance industry’s dirty little secret: Some companies charge two to three times more than their competitors for the exact same coverage. Buyers sign up for overpriced policies all the time simply because they don’t know about the other choices.

That’s where the Web comes in. Theoretically, you can answer a few questions, click your mouse and instantly see accurate quotes culled from vast databases containing hundreds of companies–all without having to speak with an agent. And, in theory, you can use the Internet’s vast array of calculators to help you figure out how much insurance you need.

But high-tech insurance shopping can quickly turn into a nightmare. For one thing, you could spend weeks visiting all the sites that promise to offer the best deal–but usually don’t. Because insurance is subject to patch-work of individual state regulations, you’ll find a limited menu of policies in some states. What’s more, you may get instantaneous quotes and you may not. And you’ll usually pay the same price as if you called an agent.

It’s not unusual to end up with inaccurate quotes, long waits, few companies to compare (or none at all, after wasting your time filling out excruciatingly detailed forms), and a never-ending stream of e-mail and calls from insurance agents.

Discouraged? That’s why we went through the mind-numbing experience of exploring the sites, requesting quotes for different families in different parts of the U.S., and checking to see how accurate those quotes were. (For more on how we shopped and the prices we were quoted, go to www.kiplinger.com) We name the top sites, plus runners-up.