Two Prices, Neither One Wrong

When a caller reads us two quotes that are far apart, the first question is almost always some version of which one is the real price? Both are. Neither company made a mistake. The gap exists because each insurer wrote its own rulebook, filed it with the California Department of Insurance, and now has to follow it exactly.

Every carrier files a plan, and it is binding on them

Under Proposition 103, a California auto insurer cannot price you off the cuff. It submits a rating plan to the Department of Insurance describing precisely how it converts a driver's details into a premium, and once that plan is approved it must be applied the same way to everyone who fits the same description. Your quote is the output of arithmetic the company committed to in advance.

For the rules across California, see the Auto World Insurance Services page on California auto insurance carriers.

That is worth sitting with for a second, because it kills two common assumptions at once. The price is not a negotiation, and the price is not the agent's opinion. Nobody at the company can decide to like you more today.

The plans disagree because the companies disagree

Insurance Code section 1861.02 tells every carrier which factors have to carry the most weight — your driving safety record, your annual mileage, and your years of driving experience, in that order. What it does not do is tell them how much weight, or how to treat everything that comes after those three.

So one company's own claim history may show that drivers who look like you cost it very little, and it prices accordingly. Another company's history may show the opposite, or it may simply be carrying more of that kind of risk than it wants right now. Both are following their filed plans. Both are being honest. They just built their plans out of different experience.

Where the disagreement gets largest

The spread between carriers tends to be narrow for the drivers everybody wants and wide for the drivers companies feel differently about. If your record is spotless, your mileage is modest and you have years of driving experience, carriers often land in the same neighborhood, because the math is not controversial.

Add anything that requires a judgement call — a recent violation, a young driver in the household, a vehicle that some companies are cautious about — and the plans start pulling apart. That is exactly when comparing is worth the time, and exactly when people give up after two calls.

What this means for how you shop

• Stop looking for the "true" price. There isn't one. There is a range, and your job is to find where in that range you actually sit.
• Do not assume the high quote is a rip-off. It is a company telling you, in the only language it has, that it would rather not write this risk cheaply.
• Do not assume the low quote is a trick either. It is usually a company whose filed plan happens to like your particular combination of facts.
• Give every carrier identical information. The comparison only means something if the inputs match. One different answer and you are comparing two different drivers.

The practical version

You cannot read the filed plans, and you would not want to. What you can do is put the same driver, the same car and the same coverage in front of several companies at once and read the outputs side by side. That is the entire method. Give us your details once and we will run them across the carriers we work with so you can see the spread rather than guess at it.