OAI Outlines Necessary Types of Info Needed for Auto Insurance Quotes

Rancho Cucamonga, CA, December 20, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Identity theft has been around since long before the World Wide Web was established, but the advent of personalized online services has exponentially increased the number of opportunities for identity theft to take place. To make sure that car insurance shoppers using the Internet while searching for a policy don’t give out unnecessary types of personal information, OnlineAutoInsurance.com has published a new FAQ outlining the types of information that consumers may be asked for, and where to draw the line.

Trustworthy sites providing free online auto insurance quotes do not require the user to enter sensitive personal data such as driver’s license and social security numbers. Though these numbers will give the receiving party a way to find information that will be necessary to generate an accurate rate estimate, it is the information that the numbers provide access to — not the numbers themselves — that are necessary.

For instance, instead of using a driver’s license number, rate-estimate sites can simply ask for information about the consumer’s driving record such as whether they’ve had at-fault accidents or traffic violations in the past few years. And instead of providing a social security number, consumers should be able to simply enter into the rate-estimate generator whether their credit is good, average or poor.

Insurers use credit standing, driving history and personal details like gender, age and address to assess a driver’s risk and set rates. And at the estimate stage, it should be adequate to provide this information without submitting a social security number of driver’s license number.

When it does come time to actually purchase a policy, though, it may be necessary to provide the agent or company with driver’s license and social security numbers. But consumers should first check with their state insurance department — a directory of which can be found at http://www.consumeraction.gov/insurance.shtml — to make sure that the company or agent in question is licensed to do business in the state.

To learn more about obtaining and evaluating car insurance rate estimates, readers can go to http://www.onlineautoinsurance.com/quotes/free.htm where they will find informative resource pages, a “Learn” page with answers to frequently asked questions like this one, and a quote-comparison generator that can help jump-start the search for a quality policy.

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