Auto Insurance Survey: What Company Provides Your Auto Insurance?

Choosing an auto insurance provider can be an overwhelming task. There are a bunch of companies to obtain quotes from, and it is important to make sure all providers cover the basics in the unfortunate event of an accident. For those just starting out, here is a helpful guide to learning about auto insurance and demystifying some of the technical lingo.

To help get a better understanding of auto insurance providers Random Survey Data conducted a survey asking ordinary students a few questions about auto insurance. This hopefully gives readers confidence in their decision making process when shopping around for auto insurance. Lets cover the basics of our survey collection.

•   The Survey was conducted via an Google Doc link through email to friends and extended friends
• Survey conducted in January 2013
•  A total of 194 responses were received
  

Auto Insurance Survey Results

Now lets dive into the data! There were a few participants (11.3%) who did not drive a car and were not enrolled for insurance. We filtered out 22 of these candidates who did not have auto insurance. This way we could provide an accurate list of companies people use for their auto insurance. Here is distribution of all the companies listed by participants in the survey.

I know it’s a bit cluttered, but here are Insurance Providers to the survey participants are:

1.   GEICO (16.9%)
2. AAA (14.0%)
3.  State Farm (14.0%)
4. Farmers (8.1%)
5.  Allstate (8.1%)

This aligns well with the amount of advertisements we see on media outlets! It is likely that GEICO appeals to the participants as a cheaper alternative to larger brick and mortar auto insurance providers.

Another question that was asked in the survey was "How participants obtain a quote and purchase their auto insurance?" From the histogram below we learn that a majority of participants order insurance online. The two other popular methods are over the phone or going to the office to talk directly to the localinsurance agent. 

If we dive a little deeper we find that of those who have GEICO, 75.9% went online to order it. Flipping this, if we ask which insurance companies people sign up for with a agent at the local office, we find some interesting results. Here are the top three insurance companies survey participants signed up for at the local office

•  State Farm (25.0%)
•  AAA (22.5%)
• Farmers (10.0%)

This knocks online based insurance companies out of the water. For example, GEICO and Progressive only had one participant claim to visit the local office. It looks like this goes back to the advertising of these companies as a real person to help.

Life Insurance

As I was processing this data I began to wonder about other types of Insurance available. Obviously vehicles are just one avenue where insurance is highly recommended. House/Renters insurance is a good one to have and life insurance is absolutely necessary also. Life insurance is often over looked but it is so crucial for your family and loved ones in the unlikely event that something happens to you. There are plenty of resources online that talk about life insurance in more detail. The Simple Dollar is a neat little website clearly explaining a lot of this information better than I ever could. Maybe in the future a different type ofinsurance can be used for this survey (the possibilities are endless!!). 

Conclusions

Back to Auto Insurance, I think we have some interesting results found in our survey. It helps shed some light on what companies people choose for auto insurance when the market is so saturated with great commercials. I am happy to hear that GEICO is in the top running’s along with AAA. Overall, this was a great introduction to the popular auto insurance companies and to see how they enroll.

                                                            

Conduct Your Own Surveys - Materials Provided

Random Survey Data is expanding!! Were taking our surveys across the country and we want your help! Now random survey data is allowing for more surveys, more data, more analysis and more ideas to help change the world!! With your participation, and the help of some printable sheets here on the random survey data website [Printable Survey Template, Printable Survey Sign-in Sheet], you can conduct your own surveys in your class rooms, office or on the streets of your community! The questions can be anything you want. I give a sample outline of question ideas here, to help get your creative juices flowing (they may need to be adapted to fit your environment).

• How do you like your ice tea sweetened?
• How long can you hold your breath?
• How long did you sleep last night?
• Do you snore or talk in your sleep?
• Do you remeber or write down your dreams?
• Do you wear a watch? if so, which hand do you wear it on?
• How do you typically tell time?
• Do you play any musical instriments? What?
• Can you read music?
• What type of music do you enjoy live?
• Most movies seen in a 24 hour period?
• Do you typically have matches or a lighter with you?
• Do you typically have a pen with you?
• Where do you keep your cell phone at night time?
• How often do you go camping?
• When is the last time you had an oil change?
• How many mega pixels is your digital camera?
• What brand is your digital camera?
• How often do you use your camera?
• Where do you store your pictures? (your hard drive, facebook, picasa, etc.?)
• How much do you like your school's mascot? (1-10 scale)
• What is the last menu item you ordered from McDonalds?
• Do you have a daily planner?

There are websites with info about how to conduct a survey, but here at Random Survey Data we prefer an "off the cuff" method. All it really takes is a printable sheet, a pen, a group of people, and a little gut's to pass around a questionnaire. With these tools you can begin to contribute to Random Survey Data's database of survey data! If it's too much to pass around a survey sheet, we made templetes for "Sign in Sheets" as well. This allows for the survey to be disguised as a sign in sheet to be passed around. Names will be ignored for any publication of the data set.

When you have collected all your survey data, send an e-mail to randomsurveydata@gmail.com with a picture, scan or a typed out email of your data sheet and it will be entered on the random survey data website to share with the world!

Do you pick up Pennies off the ground when walking V.s. Favorite Energy Bar?

Do you pick up Pennies off the ground when walking?	Favorite Energy Bar
Yes	Mint Chocolate Clif Bar
Sometimes	Penut butter clif bar
No
Sometimes	---
sometimes	----
No, that’s disgusting!	---
No	---
yes (only heads)	Trader Joes
“Sometimes”	Balance (chocolate mint)
No	cliff Bar
Depends	None
No	No
No	CliFF PB

We start by analyzing the left hand side column, where we asked if people pick up “dirty” pennies off the ground. Suprizingly, we find that bending over and picking up a pennie is not worth the effort. Maybe we should ask the same question for nickels, dimes, quarters, 1 dollar bills, 5 dollar bills, 10 dollar bills and 20 dollar bills. We may start to see a shift of peoples responses from quarters to dollars, when it’s actually enough money to bend over. Asking these questions, or observing people pick up change you throw out on the ground, we can calculate the cost for someone bending over. Here we have a chart of peoples responses, and it clearly shows the most don’t find a Pennie worth bending over for. However, very few do, in fact it seams that if luck is

involved people are more likely to pick up their lucky Pennie. To address these “sometimes” we may need to consider if they are busy getting somewhere, or if they already have their hands full of other items, and a shiny copper Pennie on the ground is the least of their worries. Something, I have always wondered, was how did the pennie get on the ground in the first place? Was it dropped by accident? Was it dropped with a couple friends (ie. quarters, nickels and dimes) and someone left the Pennie for it’s own survival? Moving to the Right hand side of the column...

On the right hand side we can see which energy bars these pennies are being spent on. A couple non-responses for energy bars, leads us to believe that these individuals prefer other types of food that provides sustained energy. Of the small sample size, we can conclude that Clif Bar is a true winner for it’s Penut butter flavor! While one individual is vague mentioning only the store they shop at for energy bars, it’s clear that Trader Joes is a clif bar supplier offering a varity of Clif products!



As a side note, Clif Bar, headquarters picture above, is a noble company looking to sustain it’s company and brand, it’s people, it’s community and the planet! Not many other companies try to be so sustainable in 5 different areas. Clif Bar’s founder, Gary Erickson looks to run his business in a responsible way, not driven only for profit. A very reputable move in my opinion. Not only do they have a fabulous product, but also a wonderful buisness model that is worth supporting next time your out shopping for a energy bar!

Time of Longest Phone Call V.s. Time Since Last Time you Have Changed a Diaper

Time of Longest Phone call	Time since last time you have changed a diaper
3hrs	3yrs
2hrs	Never
~10 min	Never
1 hour	7 yrs.
30 min	Never
3 hrs	1 week
< 1 hr	10 yrs
~2 h	1 h
1.5 hrs	---
2 h	never
> 3 hrs	1 year
~1 hr	never
~1 hr	never
~1 hr	never

Great Data, Great Data!! Here we have some interesting results for our survey data for this past week. We see that most people on the phone keep their conversations under an hour, at the hour at the most. On average we found that people spoke about 1 hour and 30 minutes for their longest recorded phone conversation. This is a significant amount of time on the phone, especially considering battery life these days. It amazes me how long cell phone batteries last, considering they are basically on all the time. I wonder how often, and when people charge their cell phones to prevent from draining their battery. Overall I was a little surprised to find that the longest phone call was only about 3 hours. I would think that a long

distance relationship would increase phone call time significantly, although current technology is preventing this from occurring. We see some individuals who choose not to receive too much radiation in their ear and keep their phone durations to a minimum. R-E-S-P-E-C-T!

Now for the analysis of the Poopy Diaper! The results vary from different individuals from having just changed a diaper, to having never changed a diaper in their life! We can tell who the parents are in the class, and who the aunt's and uncles are and which students are too shy to get involved in parenting. In this data collection we are assuming people are changing disposable diapers and not using the environmentally friendly method of cloth diapers. Although each year their is a world record attempt at the most number of cloth diapers changed in a day: Info link here! Another interesting thing to note, is that no matter how talented these graduate students are, none of these were able to change their own diaper.

If we try to correlate this data, we can see that the "parents" aka the recent diaper changers, have had above average talk time's on the phone. This would agree with a hypothesis that a couple with a child would have had to talk on the phone for a longer period of time, then a single bachelor. Interestingly enough it's just a matter of time, till these baby's getting their diapers changed, will be looking to have a cell phone of their own and talk the night away!

Do you depart from the bathroom sink while brushing your teeth? V.s. How do you navigate your way to a new address when driving somewhere?

Do you depart from the bathroom sink while brushing your teeth?	How do you navigate your way to a new address when driving somewhere?
Yes	Google or GPS
think so
As above
No
?	Google Navigation
No, but I do bring it with me into the shower from time to time
Yes	Google maps or GPS
Naw Dawg. I don’t	Google maps
No	Google maps
No
Yes	iphone/google maps
	google maps
	google
	Google or GPS
	google maps
	google maps
	google maps

I want to first apologize for the lack of consistent data between participants. I had taken two single questions and turned them into a single survey post. So some individuals were not present on both days the survey was given (horrible survey practice, yes).
One thing that is clear from the data, is that google is a very popular choice among fellow graduate students for a mapping service. Notice too that nobody said paper maps, it seams these have gone the way of the dodo bird. It seams the rise of data plans for smart phones clearly puts static paper maps “off the map” so to speak.

As for people deviating from the sink when the brush their teeth, it seams that it’s split 50/50.
We will have to look into more data to really hone in on the answer to this question!