What I encountered was that I was able to get “flash” quotes, but had to talk to a person to finalize - that’s when it got serious.
Regarding when to get the insurance, how it worked for us was while the kid was on a learners permit insurance wasn’t needed.
I’ve been with Geico for many years. In that time I have had several claims, all of which have been handled quickly and professionally, often going above and beyond what needed to be done.
I’d recommend them at a drop of the hat.
J.
My daughter is poised to join the ranks of drivers of automobiles. We’ve been very happy with State Farm but they quoted us about $300/month to add her, so we’ll have to see. Geico sounds promising.
Never get hit by a driver covered by Allstate. Good hands, my ass. One of the worst experiences of my life.
We have USAA, and have always been VERY pleased with their service, and the rates aren’t bad at all (I think for two of us, one car, liability only, it’s less than $750/year).
I added my 22 year old son as soon as he got a license - it might differ by state or insurance company, but I wasn’t willing to chance the insurance company denying coverage because they didn’t know he was driving our car. Just short of six months later, he’s bought his own car and insurance- and if he had waited a few weeks until he had been insured for six months, his rate would have been lower. Although when he actually got to the point of buying a policy , they asked when his current policy was up ( and Progressive for some reason wouldn’t insure a car that wasn’t already registered to him- although in NY , you must have insurance to register a car)
We have GEICO - it cost about $50/month to add my son as a driver ( no additional car) and I've never had any problem dealing with them- but I've heard their rates aren't so good if you don't have an almost perfect driving record.
Make certain that the quote you got from Geico is truly an “apples to apples” comparison to the quotes you got from the other companies.
When I did some online comparison shopping a couple of years ago, I made very sure that I entered the same information (on current coverage, desired coverage levels, etc.) for every one. Geico came through with the lowest quote – but they also changed some of the parameters (higher deductibles) in order to make that happen. The only reason I caught it was that I was a bit surprised at the size of the difference, and I went into their quote to double-check it.
Had Allstate until an accident, not our fault, led to our truck being totaled. In our opinion they drug their feet. Buddy of mine worked for State Farm so we moved to them and have been very pleased. Couple years ago I did check with USAA and was surprised apples for apples how much higher they were. Still with the “State”
I’m a bit of a nerd, so I have a spreadsheet with all the quotes from all the insurance companies. Some companies included Property Damage/Liability in with the Bodily Injury, some broke out the towing/rental car differently for each car so I had to put together the spreadsheet so I could compare all that coherently. In other words, I’m doing an apples to apples comparison as best I can.
As it turns out, Geico is better on auto, State Farm is better for home. The net difference may not be worth switching. I’ve been with State Farm a long time and I’m pretty sure that if I did get into an accident it wouldn’t affect my rates because of that, but who knows.
One general piece of advice I always give people is to have as much insurance as you can comfortably afford: you do not want to only have state minimums. Also, have a policy that will take care of you so you don’t need to rely on another carrier. If you have only one car and you need it, make sure you have rental reimbursement. If you can not afford to get another car at the drop of a hat or pay to get your vehicle towed from somewhere make sure you have collision coverage.
Interesting and somewhat gratifying, as that’s the arrangement we currently have! 
Have you tried Auto Owners? I haven’t found any better prices.
A friend of mine was told that she had to add her daughter right away (to their existing policy), because if she didn’t, she’d have to wait 3 years to add her. I don’t know what would have happened if they’d decided to switch later on. She’d considered not adding her right off because the girl wasn’t going to be driving any.
We’re with Liberty Mutual and generally their service was good, but their prices are high. We had to add our son a few weeks ago because he got his license, and ouch. In fairness, they did an overall policy review and cut our homeowner’s policy premium in half…
Goodness. Did they ever disclose just what that information was???
We had two accident claims within about 2 months - my car was rear-ended by a Geico policyholder, then my husband’s was totaled by a USAA policyholder (in a 4 car pileup, 3 of the 4 cars were totalled).
While Geico grumbled about replacing my daughter’s carseat, they were otherwise fine. USAA was fine as well - they gave us a fair price for the totalled car, and we sent them a claim for other losses (contents of the car that were destroyed / made unusable, lost work time etc.) totalling roughly 800 dollars. They said “how about 1,200 and you go away forever”. As we knew at that point that there were no long-lasting issues, we said sure, and went away.
I just got paid off on my totaled car by State Farm. The agent (long time personal friend) and I marveled at just how much they paid me.
Way more than fair.
I’ve had GEICO for over a decade and I’d have to say the worst thing about them is the ads, which I almost never see anyway. I’ve had 3 claims with no problems, even when they tried to send me to some cheap shop for repairs - I told them where I wanted the work done, they said fine with no argument (actually, they knew the place and conceded they were better).
For all these years, I’ve been hearing about Geico’s great rates.
Ain’t seen it. Everytime I call, the price is easily 50% higher than my present.
I use Shield of Shelter. Kicks everybody’s butt, price-wise. For me, at least.
As for Geico, never been with them, but had to deal with them on two occassions. Once was awful when it was their driver’s fault, and the other best described as just adequate as it was a third driver’s fault (rear-ended him hard enough to rear-end me) and all they did was confirm it wasn’t their fault.
I’ve been with State Farm since I started driving, and their service has never been anything but excellent. Hell, one time I was in a real bind when my car was rendered undriveable while parked and the other driver had State Farm too, but I HAD to get to campus for my finals literally 15-20 minutes after it happened. I called them up, gave them the info, and told them I had finals and they handled it all from there. In the other cases, my car was driveable, and it was as simple as could be as well.
In my experience, my car insurance feels like I’m getting my money’s worth, and based on how I was treated by Geico, they’d have to give me more than 30% to make it worth switching. Frankly, in a situation like car insurance, I think it’s one of those cases where being certain of my coverage and service is not worth skipping on to save a few bucks. I couldn’t imagine having to fight my insurance company on top of all the additional stress of dealing with getting my car repaired, getting a rental, and the financial and time loss that goes with it all.
This surprises me. Pretty much every state requires people to buy liability insurance. Presumably they also require insurers to sell liability insurance. How else could it work?
What do you do if you haven’t, yourself, had a car or a license or insurance for 5 years. No driving for you?
I see that California has a program where if no one will sell you insurance, you call them up and they take your application and give it to an insurance company, which is then required by law to sell you insurance. I bet most other states have similar programs.
New York has one too, but the thing is you’re not likely to get a quote online or over the phone, as the company you contact is probably not going to be the one ultimately selling you insurance. You have to apply to the plan through an agent/broker, and the plan will assign you to a company (hence “assigned risk”). You must be able to show which companies turned you down and the reason they gave And it wouldn’t have helped Icarus who could and did remain with the same insurer and was shopping around presumably looking for a lower price- the assigned risk rate is never going to be lower.
We’ve had Geico for around 20 years now, and have had no complaints at all about them.