Fliperati

I was surprised by how difficult it was to get quotes on home insurance when I began looking a few weeks back.  Given my current lack of insurance-worthy personal possessions, no one would be surprised to learn that I don’t know much about the insurance industry.  However, I had always imagined insurance agents as fast-talking, work-around-the-clock, bend-over-backwards-to-make-a-buck people.  That image quickly changed after I reached the third “office closed” voicemail message at 4:15 on a Tuesday.  Apparently most New Jersey insurance agencies only take calls from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays.  When I was finally able to talk to someone on the phone and go through the lengthy questionnaire about how old the house is, what I want my deductible to be, how many bedrooms are in the house, etc, etc (I can’t believe how hardly any of these agencies have websites where the applicant could just fill in a form), I was surprised by how high the premiums were.  The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance has a great website that lists the range of home insurance premiums by provider and county and all the quotes I was getting were coming in at the high end of the range.

Frustrated with the dial-from-the-phonebook approach, I submitted quote requests through a couple home insurance websites and crossed my fingers for better luck.  While this approach was convenient in that you could fill in a single questionnaire about your home and get multiple quotes back, it was supremely annoying in that you voluntarily identify yourself as somebody looking for insurance on the vast, soulless inter-web and are instantly bombarded by spam and marketing materials from all corners of the universe.  It was worth it in the end because I was finally able to get a very aggressively priced policy from a large, reputable company that was highly ranked by the NJ Department of Banking and Insurance.  Now I just hope I never have to file a claim under the policy and that the house will be sold long before my first year of coverage expires.