The Zebra Review: Auto Insurance Plans

The Zebra was created as a free tool to simplify insurance shopping for customers in all 50 states. Featuring a zebra in a suit as their mascot, the company was started in 2012 and has already produced millions of quotes for people. They've become one of the nation's leading car and home insurance comparison sites. Their tagline is, "We do the searching. You do the saving." Their algorithm compares over 100 insurance companies to seek out the best policies that will fit your needs.

Privacy is a priority

As is the case with all other insurance quote comparison sites, you'll need to provide The Zebra with some information that they can use to pull quotes from other companies. They assure you that they take privacy really seriously, so they won't be spreading your information to other companies and drowning you in spam.

Useful company comparison blogs

There's a list of main insurance companies that The Zebra partners with to find quotes for you. These familiar names include USAA, Progressive, Travelers, Geico, Esurance, Erie, Metlife, Nationwide, Metromile, and others. There are some interesting articles written recently by The Zebra's unbiased researchers about the differences among these insurance companies to help you compare which one you really might want to go with. For example, an article titled, "Progressive vs. State Farm: Which company is best for you?" covered the pros and cons of each company and gave a rating to each, letting you see which one might be the better option. Once you receive quotes and want to compare them, these blog posts might really come in handy.

Get started

To get started with The Zebra, you'll first need to provide your zip code. Then you'll answer a series of questions about your current car insurance, if you want to bundle car and home, your vehicle year, make, and model, your name, birthday, address, driving history, your spouse's information (if applicable), and then select your preferred coverage package.

Redirected to a new site

You can choose from a minimum coverage policy where you have the least amount of coverage, a "better" policy that The Zebra recommends, or the best policy where you'll receive maximum protection. There is even a customizable option where you can choose your policy and vehicle coverage yourself and see what it comes out to when you get quotes. We went for "better" coverage and only ended up with options for Progressive and Gainsco. They had a "Get Price" button to the side and The Zebra's site directed us to "View the final price on the insurer's website without having to reenter your information." This was definitely not the case since both quotes took us to another website where it was asking repeat information as if we had never been on The Zebra's website in the first place.

Wasn't helpful for us

We've noticed that some companies that once produced quotes upfront seem to make you go through the insurance company's website that they link you to. We aren't sure if this is some change that insurance companies have demanded or played a part in, but it seems to completely cut out the need for companies like The Zebra at all. So far, only our highest-rated company has allowed us to quickly scan pricing among different companies as soon as we handed over our information to them.

Praiseworthy agents

Despite our bizarre experience here that left us wondering how in the world this company is helping customers, they do have fantastic reviews. The Better Business Bureau gives The Zebra an "A-" rating and people say they are really pleased with the agents who work there. This may be a company that is much more useful over the phone than online. Others complained that they weren't given price comparisons after they filled all their info out on the website, so we know we aren't the only ones. Almost all positive reviews came from people who worked directly with agents and felt they were listened to and got better deals on their auto insurance.

Get to know the team

At the bottom of The Zebra's "About Us" page, you can see the faces of all their leadership and view their LinkedIn pages. Sometimes it helps to see who is behind a company and learn more about them to make shopping feel more personal and understand better the driving forces behind a service. We like that they're transparent about who runs this company, which even allows you to reach out to them if you feel so inclined.

Saved by reviewers

The Zebra has been featured by Forbes, Consumer Reports, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fortune, and CNBC. They've garnered a lot of attention and have truly benefited many people. In the end, we wouldn't recommend wasting your time trying to get a quote online. Instead, jump on the phone and talk with someone who can do the research for you to get a quote and will leave you with useful results. If you take this route, you're likely to get a good number of quotes you can choose from and hopefully save quite a bit on your car insurance. Because of their good customer feedback, The Zebra has ultimately earned a high rating here.

On the The Zebra website