I worked for about 8 months last year for Auto Club Group here in Michigan in product management. It was a very interesting experience--I could tell stories......let us just say I've not worked in such a slow-moving environment in a long, long, long time. By way of background---let me see if I can help.
1. Insurance is a state-by-state product. Companies can operate or not operate in a state. Each state's regulatory situation is different; each company's competitive position in that state is different.
2. There are huuuuuge numbers of variables which are tweaked to form a price quote...
3 there are huuuuge numbers of discounts which can be engaged or not.
As an example, you start with a car and a coverage level.
The car is a known fact (VIN) which has characteristics (engine/repairability/type/equipment (minivan versus hot-rod) and the coverage level is known (the limits of liability the company's responsible for versus what you're responsible for--deductible). These are what set the base rate. Then all the variables come in: location, driving type, credit rating, gender, other cars in household, etc etc etc. (These are all analyzed by squads of people within the insurance company---they're trying to figure out the insights that let them price the policy to match their risk experience and profit they want to make). Then come the discounts---again, they've analyzed what are the variables that increase profitability/decrease profitability like age/longevity/etc etc. Finally, there can be some extremely esoteric discounts (interesting ones like...who was your previous insurance company ("normal" versus "buy-here pay-here"), how soon do you want the insurance to go into effect (if you push to the last minute, you'll probably lose a small discount). It's all multiplicative out to four decimals (!): base rate times factor A times factor B times ....
All this to say that there are a huge number of variables which go into setting a price. Many of the insurance companies "write" insurance through multiple channels (you can buy direct via an 800 number, or go to a "captive" agent (the guy staffing his office--think Allstate/State Farm) or go to an "independent" agent (who sells multiple companies). An independent agent will typically write most of their business with a few companies and knows what companies are more competitive for specific situations, captive agents generally know where they're competitive and where they're not competitive). A neighbor recently gave up his "Michigan Farm Bureau" agency and went independent because Farm Bureau was not competitive in our area (inner/second ring Detroit suburbs).
This is all duplicated for homeowners insurance.....lol
AARP, Costco or other affinity groups etc are generally selling leads/mailing lists to other insurance companies--they're not particularly good or bad/expensive or cheap, but they're not really providing the insurance.
Sometimes specialized companies can provide good service and rates because they drill down into a particular demographic...Auto Club Group owned MEEMIC which was started as an insurance company for Michigan teachers; GEICO was originally Government Employees Insurance Company; USAA is for military/ex military.
I need to shop myself---I switched from State Farm to USAA about 30 years ago when I was changing jobs and was going to be mobile/moving every six months for a couple years...State Farm wanted me to do too much with a local agent for that to be convenient. I never switched insurance during the time I worked for AAA...I shopped it once right before the pandemic but got distracted.
Reach out for other ?? I'll do what I can to help.
