Quality of results/rates shown:
Number of results:
Spam risk:
Option to sell you a policy:
How results are generated:
For each car insurance comparison website we review, we evaluate several factors including user experience, risk of spam, the variety and relevancy of results, and more. We tested and evaluated results for 3 different driver profiles. The opinions expressed below are based on this experience as well as our team’s knowledge of the insurance comparison industry. Our editorial team follows a rigorous editorial policy and works independently from our insurance partners. Read more.
Rate Retriever basically acts as an insurance guide. As an insurance search engine, our goal is to help you find your best insurance options, and we feel strongly that the best way to do that is to give you personalized rates at as many insurance companies as we can – without collecting any of your contact information. As stated on our homepage, we designed Rate Retriever to empower you to make confident insurance decisions and make sure that you never feel alone in your insurance shopping journey.
It’s our goal to always provide a comprehensive list of real insurance providers at the end of our comparison quiz, and we provide rates for as many of these providers as we can. This means that you will always be provided with a comprehensive list of real insurance providers at the end of our comparison quiz.
One challenge when it comes to comparing car insurance companies is that insurance rates are highly personalized, meaning the cheapest company for you will not necessarily be the cheapest company for your friend. To solve this problem, our tool takes you through a comparison quiz where you will answer questions about factors that have the biggest impact on insurance rates such as how old you are, what state you live in, what car you drive, and more. Our quiz experience takes around 1-2 minutes to complete before you are shown your rates (depending on how many drivers and cars are included in your policy).
After you finish the quiz, we use the information you provided and data from our third-party rating partners to show you rate estimates for the top car insurance companies in your area. Keep in mind, these are just estimates to give you an idea of what your rate might look like at certain insurance companies. Your final quote may look different depending on the company you choose and their rating guidelines.
After selecting the company that works best for you, Rate Retriever connects you with the provider so that you can confirm your information and complete your purchase.
Rate Retriever may earn a commission when you click, call, or purchase a policy from one of our partners on your results page. It’s important to note that we do not let our commission potential impact the order of insurance companies you are provided with after the quiz; our results are primarily ordered by price. Commissions will also never impact the amount you pay for your policy – that price will be the same whether you go through us or direct through an agent or the company’s website.
Furthermore, we don’t require any of your contact information upfront, so you don’t need to worry about us profiting from selling said contact information to spammers.
Pros of Rate Retriever:
Cons of Rate Retriever:
Find the Right Car Insurance for You
I’m aware of the fact that I have a certain level of bias here. As a member of the Rate Retriever team, I have seen the work that went into designing our tool to be the best on the market. However, I am going to do my best to put that aside and only give you the facts so that you can have a real idea of what the user experience on Rate Retriever looks like.
In addition to my test of Rate Retriever, I have gone through several other comparison sites such as The Zebra and Insurify using the same three profiles and zip codes. Going through the experience on other tools offered me a point of comparison for our own quiz and helped to offer context to this review.
When I first landed on the homepage, I was met with a header that read, “Fetch the best rates for the right insurance coverage”. Now, if you’re new to Rate Retriever’s experience it’s important to note that this heading works in tandem with our mascot, Finley the golden retriever (my aforementioned bias notwithstanding, Finley is in fact very good at fetch).
I felt like this heading in combination with Finley helped to humanize the site while still showing that the ultimate goal here is to save me money. There is also a subheading stating, “No phone or email required. Seriously.” This immediately caught my attention because I know that insurance comparison tools are notoriously spammy, so being told upfront that my contact information isn’t required was a breath of fresh air.
Moving further down the page, there is a section explaining that Rate Retriever searches 214 insurance providers in order to find the best rates in my area. Seeing how many providers are included in Rate Retriever’s search made me trust the tool even more because I assume that the more companies they search, the more rates I will be able to compare.
There was also a photo included in this section that showed different insurance companies along with rates at each one. This increased my confidence that I would be shown actual insurance companies with real rates at the end of the quiz rather than only being matched with other comparison sites (an issue I have run into with some other insurance comparison tools).
Directly below, there is a section that includes a screen recording of the mobile version of Rate Retriever’s results page. The video showed several insurance companies side-by-side and with actual rates, which increased my confidence that I would be met with the same quality at the end of my own quiz.
There is also a section on the homepage showcasing user reviews, all of which were positive. These reviews highlighted the ease of use of the tool, the amount of money Rate Retriever helped the users save, how quickly they were able to access rates, and more.
Near the bottom of the homepage there is also a portion with links to different articles and research that the Rate Retriever team has conducted. For me, having content like this showed that the team at Rate Retriever actually cares about what they are doing. They have put in the work and conducted the research necessary to provide me with all the insurance information I need.
Lastly, Rate Retriever’s homepage includes an FAQ section with answers to questions such as, “What types of coverage are available for car insurance?”, “What factors affect my car insurance rates?”, “How does car insurance pricing work?”, and more. Having this information immediately available to me was nice to see, as these are questions I would definitely want answered before selecting a car insurance policy.
Moving onto the Rate Retriever quiz experience, I was asked for vehicle details before anything else. This felt like the most natural place to start as the car I drive is obviously going to play a big role in my insurance rates. I had to answer the first question before the following ones appeared and this also helped to make the experience feel concise and easy to follow.
Something I really appreciated about the quiz was that the different sections I would have to complete were outlined clearly at the top of the page. Seeing the categories of “Vehicles”, “Drivers”, and “Coverage” helped to prepare me for the rest of the quiz and clearly laid out what I should expect from the experience.
Additionally, later in Rate Retriever’s quiz I was asked to select if I was a homeowner, married, a student, a member of the military, and more. I know that these are all questions pertaining to possible discounts I could qualify for, so it was nice to see them asked and it really reinforced the idea that Rate Retriever was striving to find me the lowest rates possible.
Something else I appreciated about the quiz was that Rate Retriever made good on their initial promise of not asking for any contact information (even my name was optional). Having been around the block a few times with insurance comparison tools, I know that it is common for these sites to collect (and sometimes sell) their users’ phone numbers and email addresses, which oftentimes leads to high levels of unwanted spam. Rate Retriever did not require any contact information in order to access my results, so I did not have to worry about my data falling into the hands of a spammer.
For the first profile I tested, Rate Retriever’s short quiz provided me with 18 results. I was happy to see that not only were all of these results actual insurance providers, but estimates available right on the results page.
This might sound like it should be the standard, but there are a ton of comparison sites out there whose quiz results are overloaded with redirects to other comparison sites and who do not have rates immediately available, so this was refreshing to see.
In addition to displaying 18 real insurance companies (the highest number of results I’ve seen from any comparison site I’ve used), Rate Retriever also showed the top 10 providers ranked from the cheapest to the most expensive option.
Despite the fact that Rate Retriever cannot sell me a policy directly, all of the results provided me with a seamless connection to the carriers either through a “visit company website” button or a “contact provider” button for sponsored results.
Furthermore, “sponsored” results – or results we earn a commission from— were not prioritized on the results page above companies that offered a cheaper rate. The order of my results was not biased to favor the providers that Rate Retriever works with, and I really appreciated that.
For the second profile I tested, the quiz gave me 16 results, still all insurance companies and all with rates. Once again, the “sponsored” results didn’t seem to be prioritized over cheaper options in terms of placement in my list of results.
For the last profile I tested, I was returned 24 results – the highest number so far. Again, every result was a real insurance company and all but two had actual rate estimates right on the page.
Another thing I liked about the Rate Retriever results page is that it offered the ability to view my rates either as the yearly price or the monthly price. This is something I hadn’t seen on other comparison sites and I think it’s a nice touch to give users this ability.
Again, my own bias notwithstanding, I was very happy with the results Rate Retriever provided me with. I was offered the highest number of results compared to any other comparison site that I have tested, and on top of that, every result was an actual insurance company rather than another comparison tool.
I also really appreciated that Rate Retriever allowed me to choose whether I wanted to view my rates by month or by year. This helped me to conceptualize what the financial commitment would be long term so I was able to easily decide if a certain policy would fit into my budget.
In my opinion, yes Rate Retriever is worth it. Since we do not collect your contact information, you don’t really have anything to lose here, except maybe the few minutes it takes to move through the quiz and review your results. While the comparison tool that you use will depend on your own goals, Rate Retriever poses no privacy risk and provides you with comprehensive results every time.
There are a few key differences between Rate Retriever and The Zebra. First, based on my experience with The Zeba, quotes or rate estimates are often not immediately available on the results page. With this tool you need to visit the provider’s site to reconfirm your information in order to access your quotes.
Furthermore, The Zebra only returned 1-3 results for every profile I tested, and they were a mix of actual insurance providers and other insurance comparison sites. Conversely, Rate Retriever returned rate estimates for the majority of the providers on the results page, and offered me 10+ results for every profile I tested.
One thing that Rate Retriever and The Zebra have in common is that neither tool requires your phone number to access your rates. However, The Zebra does request an email address while Rate Retriever does not.
| Immediate results | More than 3 results | |
|---|---|---|
| Rate Retriever | Yes | Yes |
| The Zebra | No | No |
While I could not find any verified reviews on a third-party site, the reviews on Rate Retriever’s reviews page were all positive. They spoke highly of how easy the tool was to use, how much money they were able to save, and the lack of a spam risk involved in accessing rates.
I think that anybody who is looking to get comprehensive results and view rates from multiple insurance companies in their area all at once would benefit from this tool. Also, if you are looking to access rates without giving up your contact information, Rate Retriever may be right for you.
Anybody who is looking to try out multiple insurance comparison sites should probably not use Rate Retriever. Since we only match you with insurance providers, you will not see any other comparison sites to try on your results page. I know there are people out there who want to go through multiple quiz experiences before making their choice, and if this is you Rate Retriever might not be your best option.
While Rate Retriever does not have a customer service phone number, you can direct all of your questions to our email address at [email protected].
Rate Retriever is not an insurance company. It is an insurance comparison tool designed to help you compare rates at the top providers in your area based on your answers to a few quiz questions.
Rate Retriever is legit because they do not collect any use contact information, they provide you with an unbiased and comprehensive list of carriers, and they offer real rate estimates right on the results page.
Since Rate Retriever does not collect any of your contact information, Rate Retriever is a safe site to use. We also have a data privacy policy available, so you know your information is safe with us.
Rate Retriever is reliable because they provide rate estimates based on third-party data.
Rate Retriever was founded in 2022, and is an owned and operated digital property of Soleo Communications.
For each car insurance comparison website we review, we evaluate several factors including:
We tested and evaluated results for 3 different driver profiles:
The opinions expressed in our review are based on this experience. Our team also has previous knowledge of the insurance comparison industry that may influence how we review top insurance comparison sites.
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