InsureDirect.com offers many ways to pay for your insurance policy. Regardless if you need to make a  monthly or new policy down-payment, we make paying for your insurance easy.

Whether you need to buy Auto Insurance, Homeowners Insurance, Commercial Auto coverage, Long Haul Truck Insurance, or Insurance for your Motorcycle, Motor Home, Recreational Vehicle, Boat, or Business; InsureDirect.com provides both current customers and new shoppers many ways to pay. We accept both credit cards and cash transfer services to make your down payment or scheduled monthly balance due.

Things were a bit different when we started with a strict focus on cheap insurance options in 1992. Marketing our agency under the Moniker “Cheap Auto Insurance,” the only two ways you could make your down payment or monthly payments was by personal/business check or cash in our office, or by check or money order by mail.
Although this may sound a bit limited today, keep in mind that in those long-ago days we were very typical of a small Main Street insurance agency, only serving local customers from a two room office in North Wales, PA.

Even though that was nearly 20 years ago, I truly miss the early days of visiting a customer’s home and sitting around the kitchen table to compare auto insurance rates to the State Farm Auto Insurance Company or other carriers with ‘captive agents’ who could not offer competing prices from different carriers.

I’m sure many of the younger agents these days who work at the ‘big box insurance carriers’ don’t have any pleasant memories of enjoying a cup of coffee at a customer’s home, but this is the type of personal service we still offer and which is not available at many of the new larger organizations that make their name by offering affordable car insurance with free online quotes.

In 1995, with an eye towards offering discount auto insurance to all Pennsylvania drivers, I placed a help wanted ad for a car insurance agent on the other side of the state from Lansdale, which is a Philadelphia suburb. I hired Leon, a career Property & Casualty agent who sold both Auto Insurance and Homeowners Insurance in Pittsburgh, PA. To help get him started; I placed “Cheap Auto insurance” advertisements in numerous Pittsburgh area newspapers like the Penny Pincher and the Buck Saver.

When the first Monday morning rolled around on which my new agent was set start, he informed me that he had decided to take another job selling cheap health insurance for the Aetna health insurance organization. Although he needed to secure his Life Insurance License; he would be selling Health Insurance, Medical Insurance and Dental Insurance rather than Car Insurance and Homeowner/Renter’s Insurance.

Although I thought it was highly unfortunate at the time, it turned out that Leon choice to switch to selling Health Insurance was the best thing which could have happened to InsureDirect.com.

I immediately contacted the Pittsburgh Area News papers to see if I could receive a refund for any prepaid advertising I had purchased which had not run yet. I was advised that all sales were final, but that I could change the type and local phone number in the ads. Instead of throwing in the towel, I realized that this was the opportunity of a life time! I contacted the phone company and requested a Toll-Free phone number, then placed the new phone number into the Pittsburgh advertising and waited across the state, hoping that the phone would start ringing.

Well, it turned out be better than I could ever have imagined. The phones started ringing and just wouldn’t stop. InsureDirect.com was now providing cheap car insurance quotes and homeowners insurance quotes on both the east and west ends of the state of PA.

Upon providing a true budget car insurance quote, we would mail out full car insurance applications to addresses over 300 miles away and receive the completed apps with signatures and check in the mail a few days later. It was a very exciting time.

But you know what they say; “Be careful for what you wish for.” One day, I received a call from a women who loved the direct line car insurance quote I provided and told me it was the cheapest car insurance quote she had recieved. The problem was that her car insurance renewal date was that day. We simply did not have time to mail the application and have it returned with signatures and a form of payment. I immediately thought of faxing the application to her for her signature and having her fax it back to me. But that still left the thornier issue of how to get her down payment to me.

It was at that moment when I had a fantastic idea. Smiling like the Grinch who stole Christmas, the words “Western Union” lit up in my mind’s eye. I quickly opened the North Wales, PA, phone book to find the nearest Western Union Location. I advised my new customer to hang up the phone and do the same on her end. She quickly called me back with the location of her local Western Union Office, which also happened to have a Fax Machine. Perfect! I faxed the application to her and she sent the down payment via the Western Union system. In 15 minutes, I received her faxed signatures and confirmation that her payment was in Western Union’s nationwide system awaiting my pick-up. This was truly an exciting and fantastic new way to do business in those days before the Internet transformed how people could communicate and share information.

I immediately contacted Western Union and applied for InsureDirect.com to have its own Western Union Account. After being approved, we could receive payments from any Western Union Office in the country.

At the time, I was told by representatives of Western Union that they did not have one car insurance agency like InsureDirect.com doing business like this. Although a few insurance carriers used their system for late and canceling insurance policies and collections, not one insurance agency was using their system to secure new car insurance policies.

Although what happened soon after could be a story for another day, I’ll share with you now: It wasn’t long before Western Union representatives starting marketing the idea to other Car Insurance Agents. Six months after that, I received three separate letters in one week from three different auto insurance carriers advising that any agent using Western Union and Faxing Car Insurance Applications was to cease and desist from the practice immediately. It turned out that the majority of the agents who attempted to emulate our process for expediting low cost insurance over a distance did not have customers signing off on both State Specific forms and a number of necessary releases and agreements which I had engaged attorneys to draft in order to fully protect the customer, the agency and the insurance carrier issuing the policy.

Upon presenting copies of these documents to the carrier’s legal departments and in light of the fact that, unlike these “me-too” agencies, not one complaint had been made about our easy payment system, we were the only agency that was permitted to continue the practice for many years. Our same-day-service option is so successful, that we now offer it in 46 states and the District of Columbia.

As time marched on, we added a fourth payment option to our list of convenient ways to pay: As I’m sure you well know, there is a Wal-Mart Store in almost every community in the United States. Money Gram, like Western Union, is another immediate and convenient consumer payment option, and is available in every Wal-Mart Location Nationwide. Just as with Western Union, you will find InsureDirect.com’s Money-Gram Account number on your Fax or email cover-sheet when you request an application in order to take advantage of the great rates we offer on car insurance. Provide the control number to the Wal-Mart Employee at the service desk, and your payment will be instantly delivered to the Premium Trust Account in our Lansdale Call Center.

With the advent of bank debit cards, consumers can also get access to the funds in their checking account without writing a check or going to an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Any online or telephone-dependent business which does not accept Visa or MasterCard will have difficulty completing in today’s competitive 21st Century environment. And, although not as heavily used by our customers, InsureDirect also accepts American Express and Discover Card.

As a final thought, I’d like to note that, for nearly 20 years, InsureDirect.com has served thousands of local customers in the Montgomery and Bucks County Area of Pennsylvania and tens-of-thousands more customers across the United States. Regardless of whether you are one of our valued local Lansdale or one of our equally-valued California customers, you are vitally important to us!

And having said that, although we try hard for perfection, there are occasions where things don’t go quite as smoothly as desired. That’s where the Insuredirect difference comes in. When a problem arises for which you aren’t satisfied, then I, Mike Dortch, InsureDirect.com’s Founder & President will be there to address your concern personally. Whether you have an issue or concern which hasn’t been resolved to your satisfaction, or you have sensitive matter that you would prefer to discuss with me personally, call me Toll-Free at (800) 807-0762 ext. 206.

I can also be reached by email mdortch@insuredirect.com. And if I’m not available, leave a message of send an email and I will get right back to you.