If you are thinking about buying a home or you are interested in getting better rates on your current insurance, InsWeb.com, will save you lots of time, money and disappointment, and it's free to consumers. By offering a one-stop shopping experience, InsWeb.com can save you precious time calling individual carriers only to wait while their underwriters decide whether to insure you or not and it saves you money while you make comparisons between insurance products in real time - online.

Many first-time home buyers don't realize that some insurance products, such as homeowner's insurance, are not always easy to get. Insurers have special niches and individual underwriting guidelines. Some insurers don't take new customers unless they are already handling the customer's car insurance or renter's insurance. Why spend your time calling each carrier, and giving your information over and over, only to find that you don't fit their consumer profile?

Obtaining homeowner's insurance can be a challenge. It is a big ticket item as far as insurance goes, and can alter your monthly payments significantly. Most mortgage lenders require that home buyers have homeowner's insurance in place before they will allow the loan to close. At closing, most require that the homeowner's insurance premiums are paid a year in advance, or they will help you arrange escrow of the homeowner's insurance premiums in a special account.

As a new home buyer, you may have your hands full with working out your budget, shopping for a home loan, and making moving plans. Wouldn't it be nice to get one item crossed off your list? You'll be much better able to plan that budget if you have an idea of what your monthly homeowner's premium or escrow will cost. With an investment of about 15 to 20 minutes, you can go on the InsWeb Website, get quotes, learn about different types of insurance, refer to an insurance glossary, and comparison shop.

Simply fill out your information and the quotes from the carriers will either appear instantly on the Quote Pad, or you will be notified within 48 hours by email. If a carrier isn't interested, it simply will not respond to the InsWeb inquiry, but you won't have wasted a moment calling on it.

InsWeb.com puts you in touch with over 30 national and regional carriers with a wide range of products from auto, renters, term life, homeowners and health insurance. The site has recently added condominium insurance. The benefit to you as a consumer is that you can compare multiple quotes. The Quote Pad will list the name of the carrier as well as the price and term. For homeowner's insurance the site plans to expand its carriers and currently offers quotes from AIG, American Family, and State Farm. For renter's insurance, InsWeb offers State Farm and American Family.

"The virtue of shopping online for insurance is that the price for identical products can vary widely," advises Greg Berardi, vice president of public and investor relations for InsWeb. "The variance is from carrier to carrier. In California, we learned from publicly filed rates at the California Department of Insurance, that in major metropolitan areas we found there was a 160% difference in prices quoted to consumers for homeowner's insurance. There was a 450% differential for renters insurance.

"Insurance is one of those products where it really pays to shop." InsWeb is not only about delivering quick quotes; it's also about educating the consumer. You can go to the site to learn by taking the coverage and savings quizzes. Learn what is covered and not covered on a standard homeowner's policy. Learn tips on how to save money on your insurance.

"The basic principal is that the insurance process is badly broken," explains Berardi. "We have tried to simplify the process by leveraging the Internet to make consumers smarter about purchasing homeowners insurance. When you're filling out a quote form, and you have a question, you can click on the glossary and get a definition. All of these tools help people better understand the process."

Published: June 18, 1999

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