How We Calculate Your Rates

At Rate Retriever, we use a combination of publicly available data and technical partnerships to calculate the most accurate insurance rates for your unique driver profile – without collecting your contact info.

How insurance rates are calculated

Insurance companies have rating plans that detail how they determine premiums based on factors like your location, driving history, credit score, and more. These rating plans are submitted to state departments of insurance which check to make sure the plans are fair, affordable, and meet all state regulations.

What is a rating plan?

Essentially, a rating plan outlines the insurance company’s algorithms for determining car insurance rates based on driver profile. The rating plan is a set of rules that show how much each personal factor impacts the price of car insurance for a given driver insuring their specific vehicle in a given zip code.

How do rating plans work?

Rating plans are complicated beasts. In the most basic terms, you can think of rating plans like this: they start with the zip code. Then, within the zip code they show how much car insurance costs for the vehicle. Then, they add or subtract from the total cost based on the driver’s age, driving history, and personal factors.

Trust us – we’ve spent a lot of time looking at and trying to decipher insurance company’s rating plans, and they’re a doozy. There’s a ton of detail that goes into each.

Why do insurance companies use rating plans?

Insurance is regulated by the state department of insurance. The state department of insurance needs to review the rating plans to make sure that insurance prices remain fair and affordable for the state’s residents.

What is a rating engine?

A rating engine is the insurance company’s technology that calculates rates using its complicated algorithm. This is different from their rating plan because it considers live data inputs from the driver who is looking for insurance (actual address vs zip code, actual driving record vs hypothetical incidents, etc.). Results from the rating engine are your actual quotes; not just estimates.

How Rate Retriever Calculates Your Rates

1. You tell us a little about yourself

We try to make our quiz simple and quick, so we only ask about the factors that have the biggest impact on your rates.

2. We work behind the scenes with our partners

Our proprietary tech gets input from our partners who source their data from public rate filings or access some carriers’ rating engines.

3. We match your rates with providers in your area

We’ll find the top providers in your area and give you rates for as many of them as we can.

Are my rates accurate?

We work hard to make sure our rates are the most accurate we can give you without collecting your personal contact information. But because an insurance company will look at your address, driving record, insurance history, and VIN (as well as other personal information Rate Retriever doesn’t handle), the final rate you’ll pay might be a little different than what you see on our site.

Are the prices I see quotes?

Not really – because we use a combination of publicly available data from rating plans as well as data from rating engines through our partners, the rates you get from Rate Retriever are estimates only. It’s best if you use them as guidelines when deciding which insurance company might be right for you.

To get a final quote, you’ll need to contact your chosen company and give them a few more pieces of personal information such as your legal name, address, and VIN.

Frequently asked questions

How often are rates updated?

We update rates each month based on new filings from insurance carriers and state departments of insurance. This helps ensure that the rates you see reflect the most current information.

Why do rates vary by insurer?

Each insurance company uses its own rating plan, which uses different factors. That’s why rates for the same driver can vary between insurers.

Can I get a guaranteed quote from Rate Retriever?

No, the rates displayed on our site are only estimates (on purpose!). We can’t give you a live quote without your contact information, which would make it impossible to shop privately for insurance. We want to guarantee a spam-free shopping experience, so we work with rating partners who can give rate estimates without contact info.

You’ll need to contact the insurance provider directly for a final, binding quote.

What if I don’t see rates for a particular insurer?

Our data providers don’t cover all insurance companies. However, we want to give you as many options as possible, so sometimes we’ll offer to connect you with an alternative company we think might be a good fit for what you need.