ISFMA the Blog

Searching for life insurance can be a daunting task and if you don’t know where to start from, it can take hours and hours that could be better spent living the life you’re trying to insure. Although personal contact with an insurance agent is the best way to get an absolute and accurate quote from any one insurance agency as well as learn whether the company is responsive and understanding of your needs, the best place to get a base quote so you can narrow down your choices and make some preliminary cuts and decisions, is, you guessed it, the internet.

The internet offers you two major options for getting the information you want about life insurance: insurance company web sites and insurance plan/company comparison engines. No matter which option you choose, you will be able to enter a great deal of your information prior to ever speaking to an agent and get a quote based on that information. A comparison engine is ultimately the quickest online method for you to get free life insurance quotes online since you will only be required to enter your information once in order to get dozens of life insurance quotes from reliable life insurance companies.

One caveat to using the online comparison systems is that you should probably know beforehand whether you are looking to purchase a variable, term, accidental death and dismemberment or whole life insurance policy.

Another issue with using online systems is that while the quotes will be free—you should never pay for a quote and if you are asked to pay, you should walk away—it’s really not free. If you’re just browsing, you may want to be careful about how much information you give out and if you don’t want people calling you, you shouldn’t give out your phone number. The same is true of other personal information, such as your address, your full name and your social security number—these are things you should never have to give out just to retrieve free life insurance quotes.

To get free life insurance quotes online you should be prepared to give out your city, state, zip code, first name, age, sex, weight and answer several general questions pertaining to your health—do you drink, are you a smoker, have you had cancer, do you have any other terminal illnesses, etc. You may also be asked to provide your email and your telephone number, but these items should be optional. If you choose to provide contact information, you should read the entire acceptance page very carefully and also read the terms and conditions and privacy policy of the web site.

Remember, while individual insurance companies are required by law to keep your personal information private, they are not required to keep your contact information private, unless they offer you such terms in writing. Additionally, comparison engines are not providers and therefore, are not required by law to keep any of your personal information private and many engines will most likely sell your information to other companies.