What does time have to do with life insurance quotes and how does saving time save you money?

Have you ever considered what your free time’s worth?  I usually do when my wife wants me to drive a long way to go to some store that’s having an “amazing sale.”  After driving an hour out of my way and waiting in line for a half hour, I usually conclude that, when I factor in the cost of my free time, the savings were hardly worth it.

I consider that what I normally earn in an hour is also the cost of my idle time.  If I am worth $25 or $50 or a thousand dollars an hour (I wish) at work, that’s what my free time is worth to me.   Unfortunately, my wife disagrees with this concept and usually wins the argument and so, off to sales we go.

However, if you don’t take my wife’s side of this argument and do agree with me, I have some advice for you when it comes to shopping for a new life insurance policy.  You can save a lot of time (and money, per my theory) if you follow this advice – find a website that provides life insurance quotes from multiple insurance companies.  Also, make sure the website doesn’t ask for your contact information prior to showing you quotes.  More on that later.

Don’t be fooled by the websites offering life insurance quotes that are nothing more than lead generation sites for life insurance agents and brokers.  What happens on these sites is you fill in your information and several choices pop up.  However, most of what’s being displayed are other life insurance websites.  So you’ve just spent this time on this site only to be directed to other sites.  When you click over to these sites, you will be asked to fill in your information again in order to get quotes.  Not only did you just waste your (valuable) time, but now multiple web sites have your personal information.  Aside from the value of your time we’re discussing here, do you really want your information spread over multiple websites?

Another similar type of lead generation website is one in which they gather your information, don’t show you quotes, but rather sell your information to multiple brokers and agents who will call you and try to sell you a policy.  How much of your precious time will be spent speaking to (or avoiding) these phone calls and emails?

I shop on the Internet for the convenience and, contrary to my wife’s opinion, I value what my time is worth.  I do most of my shopping online because it is fast and relatively simple and I can find and purchase what I want in a short period of time.  If I want to buy a new computer, for example, I don’t want to go to a computer website that will recommend me to other sites (Amazon.com is an exception to this because, even though I might be purchasing from a vendor that isn’t Amazon, they process and guarantee the transaction).  I want to go to a site that shows me all the computers within my price range with the features I am looking for.  Once I find one, I can read up on it and make my purchase on the spot.   This way, I save not only on the price but, if you factor the value of my time into it, the savings are even greater.

There are several excellent life insurance websites that will show you quotes from life insurance companies without needing your contact information.  You can then apply for the policy without having to go to one or more additional websites. The price of the policy will be the same no matter who you purchase from but, with this type of website, you will be saving a significant amount of time.