The yearly cost of running and maintaining a vehicle is very high and one of the main cost elements involved is insurance.

In the UK it has been illegal to drive without insurance since 1930 when a law was passed that required every person to have third party insurance or higher. The problem is, getting insurance can be a costly affair.

Many drivers will try any means possible to get cheap car insurance. There are many different companies in the insurance market offering a variety of different means to get a quote. There are many reasons why prospective customers choose different methods for finding a car insurance quote. If we look at the different ways, we may be able to see the reasons why.

Telephone

Many people choose this method to get a quote because they can do this from the comfort of their own home, the only issue with calling for a quote is the time it takes for the call to be answered, which if you have ever contacted a call center, can be a long time.

Websites

This is the method insurers prefer customers to use as it is the cheapest way for them to give a quote, because of this some companies offer discount incentives to customers who book online. The reason why a lot of people use this way to find a quote is because they can fill in the forms at their leisure and without the pressure talking to a sales representative can bring.

Brokers

Brokers are middlemen who buy blocks of policies from insurers and sell them onto prospective customers or get paid by the insurers for each customer that buys a policy through them. The customer benefits from using a broker because the broker searches for the cheapest quote by using a large range of insurers, also when dealing with a broker this can be done on a face-to-face basis. The drawback comes with having to travel to the brokers office.

Overall each method has positive and negative sides, but when it comes to getting a car insurance quote or buying cheap car insurance the Internet seems to be the most cost effective method.