Long story short, I'm shopping for my next car. One factor I'm considering is insurance cost.
The only issue is that I've only narrowed it down to a list of 22 different cars.
How do I compare insurance rates for all these without going through a 15-minute-long quote process for each model?
Thanks.
With Progressive, the quotes take about 30 seconds each online (but, then again, they are already my insurer). I'm FINALLY 25 this year, though, so it's now pretty much a moot point.
Really isn't a good way. I doubt you'd need 15 minutes for each model. If you get someone on the phone, they should be able to look each car up fairly quickly. But it is a labor intense process.
I still feel like I get screwed on my insurance and I have a perfect record, I'm 28 years old, I have great credit... all the things you would think would make my rates super low. Oh, I get it. I live in county X so my rates are twice what they would be if I lived a quarter of a mile away in county Y. But they don't tell you why (trade secrets... it's actually a fair reason).
I remember when I lived in New York, I was paying $250 a month for insurance on my Buell with Geico. State Farm wanted $550 a month and Allstate wanted $700 (the insurance agent laughed at me on the phone and apologized profusely for the stupid rate). I ended up switching to Progressive for $80 a month a few months later. I have literally NO idea how they calculated that stuff.
My suggestion, Tom, is to narrow it down to the top five cars you REALLY want and then call about them. Call all of the insurance companies about them. They get really stupid when they rate vehicles differently (or the same as is the case with the IS300 and the Viper with Geico).
What are your top car picks, by the way?
Heh, good question:
Acura RSX
Audi A4
Celica GTS
Cobalt SS
Corolla XRS
Dodge SRT-4
E46 BMW
EP3 Civic
Focus SVT
Integra GSR
IS300
LS1 Camaro
Mazda 3
Mazdaspeed Protege
Miata
Mini Cooper S
P71
Saturn Ion Redline
Toyota MR2
Mustang
VW GTI
WRX
In my experience, the more stereotypical "tuner-y" or "sports" cars tend to insure for more. My '86 Supra is currently more expensive to insure than my 2002 E46 coupe was. Go figure. I quoted an RSX once and the cost was ASTRONOMICAL, for whatever reason...but Honda products get stolen a lot in MKE, so that probably has something to do it.
Call up your insurance. Don't be surprised like I was and find out that a 95 miata costs more to insure than a 04 RX-8 when you go to add it to your policy. $&#;! 
Wow. I feel like you should have started with a "what car" thread first. 
So yeah, the IS300. I hated insuring that car. Progressive even gave me that little stress box that reported how I drove so they could give me a discount. 1%. When they told me that, I told them it was why I was going to cancel my policy with them forever and switched to Geico. Then I sold the car and bought the Dodge. If I'm going to stick a sharp object into my eye, it might as well look nice while it's causing me all that pain.
bgkast wrote: Call up your insurance. Don't be surprised like I was and find out that a 95 miata costs more to insure than a 04 RX-8 when you go to add it to your policy. $&#;!
I found out recently that a 95 Miata is more expensive to insure than a 2004 Mazdaspeed Miata.
How THAT works, i'll never know.
Just get liability and try not to wreck it? In my experience liability doesn't change much no matter what you're driving. But then again, I'm a massive cheapskate, and have never owned anything I couldn't walk away from if I had to.
In reply to 16vCorey:
Not in my experience. They seem to think you are more liable to crash into someone else when you are driving a tooner yo! car, and charge you accordingly.
In reply to bgkast:
My experience as well. I, too had an IS300 once, and the insurance was EXORBITANT - even with liability only. $140-something a month, it was; big reason I sold the car. I've never had anything but liability, yet it's amazing how the rates will vary.
Weird. My '94 Passat GLX VR6, '84 Porsche 944, '90 325i, and '99 323i were all within $10 a month from each other.
In reply to 16vCorey:
Maybe because they are all cars preferred by old men. 
The stereotypical NA miata driver (you know ) must be accident prone. 
bgkast wrote: In reply to 16vCorey: Maybe because they are all cars preferred by old men.
Hayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy now.
Tom, sent you a pm
In reply to confuZion3:
250 A MONTH FOR A BIKE???? my 1997 Triumph speed triple cost me 33.34$ a month. and I'm 25, with horrid credit, and thats the only vehicle on the policy
My my experience the number one (maybe only) factor in determining rates for any perceivably "fun" car is the ratio of old fat guy to 17-22 year old idiot owners. Thus Corvettes, Porsches, Miatas, Elise - all pretty cheap. Civic/integra, WRX, EVO - bend over. My E36 BMW was actually going up every year despite becoming substantially less valuable, presumably because more dumb kids could now afford to buy them and pronptly drive them into poles while texting. My 7 year newer V70R with 110 more HP is less for full coverage than I was paying for liability on the BMW. I also switched from an AP1 s2000 to a late AP2 last fall, which books for almost 10k more, and my insurance went down.
Back when I was single I got a comparison between an s2000 and an NSX. NSX was cheaper by a lot. It's all about what crowd drives the car.
My 2009 STI "station wagon" with 305 HP is $72/month with full coverage. Interestingly enough I had 2007 2.5i sedan before that. With a little over half the power and only 5% of the tuner stigma, it was only $6 less per month to insure.
So buy a wagon or hatchback.
I send an email to my current agent. It usually goes something like this:
Hey Steve, looking at a new car. Can you give me quotes for the following: (insert list here).
He gets back to me in about 1-3 hours with estimates.
Also, fun stuff with actuarial tables and all... It would be less for me as a 24 year old to insure a C5 Corvette than it would a WRX.
A lot of it also depends on your insurance company and how far along you are on the old fat guy scales - with my current insurer, the Evo actually isn't that bad for a brand new car with an F&F rep (it's about $500 more a year than a 95 Miata with the same good coverage with high limits). But then, I've been 17 for a looooong time.
That said, I got quotes for our fleet from another highly rated insurance company and they quoted me twice the rate for both the Evo and my wife's Range Rover than we are currently paying for the same coverage. I took that as an indication that they didn't really want out business...
tjbell wrote: In reply to confuZion3: 250 A MONTH FOR A BIKE???? my 1997 Triumph speed triple cost me 33.34$ a month. and I'm 25, with horrid credit, and thats the only vehicle on the policy
Yeah. For a long time, I thought there was something reported about me to insurance companies that they were not making me aware of. I thought maybe there was a person out there who had horrible credit, a bunch of accidents, and a criminal record; who was eternally 16, got speeding tickets every day, and kicked puppies--maybe they though I was that person. But... I'm pretty sure they have to tell you about stuff like that.
+1 for calling your agent. That's what I do with mine once in awhile when I'm pondering new cars. But my family has been with the same agent for over 30 years.
Somewhat relavant, I found out that my insurance cost (even for liability only) would double if I replaced my 83 300SD with a 2004 Focus SVT. That one got crossed off the list pretty quick. A 1996 Jaguar XJR on the other hand would have only made about a $150 difference.
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