Geico will not give you a quote instantly and let you buy instantly.

you say you last bought coverage 18 months ago. i said the market failed in december. i encourage you to try to buy coverage now and see. i was also surprised since i expected the previous situation of instant insurance to still be in place.

not sure why i am being downvoted, i encourage anyone to try for themselves

Yes. I tried to get car insurance in July in California and barely succeeded — I had to walk in to an AAA branch and they quoted me 2-3 times the Geico price.

Geico will quote a price but forces a 15 days waiting period. Then they’ll send you snail mail and ask you to send in a picture of your car within two days, by snail mail. This is the car you don’t have insurance on, so it’s probably still at the dealer’s or at the seller’s house! I think they’re not allowed to actually refuse to sell insurance but they’ll do everything they can to make it annoying enough that you go away. State Farm and the others are all equally bad.

I eventually was able to get well priced insurance same day through “toggle” which is a Farmers subsidiary, even though Farmers is no longer offering online applications and has 14 days waiting. AAA also was available but like you quoted me 3x the price.

I just got car insurance last week through Progressive in California. It was cheaper than the same coverage in Washington and activated instantly.

I also just got insurance from Progressive two days ago and I was told they would not do faster than 14 days in California.

Okay. Sorry they're jerking you around. But your experience is clearly not universal.

I mean, the insurance agent told me it was universal for all new customers of progressive in California. You are the only person on this thread who has said they had a different experience.

I am curious what makes it different, as I have no record and drive fewer than 2k miles a year.

How am I supposed to answer that? Either your insurance agent was wrong, or mine shouldn't have sold it to me. All I can contribute is my experience.

Coudn't even get someone on the phone at Geico in 5 hours 2 days ago. Wasn't happening yesterday either.

I concur, bought insurance for a new car early January and got it instantly using esurance.com (Allstate) by just entering my VIN. Yes, I am in SF/Bay Area.

interesting. i forget if it was allstate or state farm but one of them refused to do online and also refused to do fewer than 14 days out - this was like two days ago.

To be clear: I already had my old car insured with them for several years, so I just removed the old car and added the new car. I am also 50+ with no negative record and a garage in a single family home.

oh i am discussing for new customers, not people with existing policy - might be different there.