Gabi: Side-by-side Car Insurance Quotes

If you're shopping for car insurance, you may have heard of Gabi. They have ads all over TV and the web, but who are they? How does their service work?

Gabi is an online car insurance comparison site started by Dr. Hanno Fitchner in 2016 to simplify how buyers find car insurance rates. On their website, Gabi claims to compare quotes in minutes from the top 40 insurance companies for car, home, renters landlord, and umbrella insurance.

They claim that using their comparison site could save you over a thousand dollars a year on car insurance, but is their service really worth it? Let’s take a look at what Gabi has to offer.

Getting a Car Insurance Quote from Gabi

You’re in the market for a new car insurance policy, so you head on over to Gabi. You land on their homepage, but what should you expect before you get started? What information will you need to share to get a quote?

The way Gabi goes about saving their customers money is by finding them policies cheaper than what they currently have. So, the first thing Gabi asks for is who your current insurer is. From there, you’ll have to put in some personal information and a few important factors such as:

• The make and model of your car
• How old your car is
• If you own or lease it
• If you use your car for commuting, personal use, occasional use, etc.

Then, they’ll ask you a few questions about you and any other drivers you want on your policy, including:

• Name
• Birthdate
• Address
• Gender
• Marital status
• Living situation (own or rent)
• Education
• Your current insurance information (with which carrier and for how long)

You will also be asked what level of insurance you want – minimum, good, or best. We selected good, which includes $50k/$100k of bodily injury coverage, $50k of property coverage, and $50k/$100k of uninsured motorist coverage. The whole process took about 10 minutes to complete from start to finish and we received a list of quotes less than a minute later.

Now that they have my information, can I compare quotes?

Once you’ve put in your basic information and built your profile with the categories from up above, Gabi will then populate a list of insurers in a matter of seconds (we saw about ten). Then, they highlight your best quote and place it at the top of the list. All the prices are visibly listed for your comparison, but it should be noted that these are only estimates.

To get a full quote, choose the policy that best suits your needs and price range and you’ll be asked to share your license plate number to authenticate your driving record. Unfortunately, we were unable to go past this point in the quoting process as our sample profile did not have a real driving record.

As we scrolled down through the list of estimates, we found an increasingly more expensive list of quotes, some of which were more than three times as expensive as the best offer shown by Clearcover for $160/mo.

When you click the “View Details” of a policy, you are shown an overview of the whole policy. This will help you decide whether the coverage matches what you’re looking for before choosing a policy to buy.

The policy we were offered through Clearcover, the cheapest option, included $50,000 of bodily injury insurance per person and $100,000 per accident, along with $50,000 of damage coverage per accident. With this policy, we would pay a $1,000 deductible for both comprehensive and collision damage.

Unfortunately, because Gabi requires a license plate number and driving record to generate an accurate quote, we are unable to state whether or not the $160 estimate is actually how much you should expect to spend.

Generally speaking, insurance prices go up quite a lot after your first accident, so considering that our profile had one reported accident, the $160 estimate may not be a realistic quote.

Gabi Reviews

Gabi’s reviews are average, at best. The Better Business Bureau currently rates Gabi at just over 3 out of 5 stars. Clearsurance, a well-known insurance rating site, lists Gabi as a comparison site but has no information on the company. Other review sites such as Site Jabber and Shopper Approved both have no information on Gabi. However, Yelp currently lists them as a 4-star company.

What is interesting, though, is the disparity between the reviews. It appears that buyers either love or hate Gabi. Of the 15 Better Business Bureau’s reviews, 8 reviews ranked Gabi at 5 stars, while 6 ranked it at 1 star. Only one reviewer gave them an average rating of 3 stars. As we read through the reviews, we also noticed that many people had the same complaint. Take a look here:

As you can see, the most common complaint on Yelp had to do with a mixture of inaccurate quotes that ended up costing far more than first stated, and awful customer support. As one reviewer put it, they “only respond via Yelp” to their negative reviews.

Over on the Better Business Bureau, things were not much better. Again, customers had a lot to say about Gabi’s lack of customer support and that their quotes were higher than they had already been quoted. Throughout our entire process of comparing quotes through Gabi, we also never received contact from the company.

While there are plenty of positive reviews too, the high volume of one-star reviewers with all of the same complaints seems to suggest that these are more than just disgruntled shoppers. This is especially true when other reviewing sites have little to no information on the website.

This is not to say that you are guaranteed a bad experience with Gabi, only that you should be cautious. Gabi does still hold an A rating with the BBB and a 4/5 rating on Yelp, but there are some glaring concerns that may turn you away from using their service.

What Do Their Employees Think?

Surprisingly little. Glassdoor, an online employer reviewing site, had only two employee reviews for Gabi and, similarly to their customer reviews, they were mixed and the disparity between them was wide. See it here:

As you can see, employees also love Gabi or hate it. Both reviewers noted in their cons that the company does not seem to be managed well because it is new to the market. However, with only two reviews, it is hard to get a clear picture of what working for Gabi is like.

Does Gabi have an app?

Being able to constantly stay connected on the go is crucial to modern life. Texting, emailing, shopping, and social media are all facts of life now, and having access to them on your phone is key to staying up to date. Your car insurance is no different.

So, does Gabi offer a mobile app?

They do, but only if you are currently using an Apple product. You can find the app easily by searching Gabi Insurance in the Apple App Store.

The app functions much like their website and takes you through the process of building a profile.

You will be asked all of the same information as on the website and will be taken to an identical results page. Overall, the Gabi app is essentially just a mobile-friendly, scaled-down version of their website.

So, in a word, yes, Gabi is mobile-friendly but don’t expect more than you would get on their website. It is also worth noting that the app is only rated 2.4 stars on the App Store, with many customers echoing similar complaints to those shared above.

Your car insurance shopping shouldn’t end with Gabi

Gabi has done a good job of advertising themselves on television and across the internet as a premier comparison site, but that doesn’t mean that they are the only car insurance comparison platform in the marketplace, and your search for insurance companies shouldn’t stop there.

With Compare.com, you can find and compare cheap car insurance, much like what you would with Gabi, but you’ll find much more accurate estimates and quotes. We also won’t leave you waiting for a reply or only get in touch once you’ve left us a bad review.

When you finally get your premium from Gabi, you won’t be surprised to find that it’s twice the price originally quoted. At Compare.com we aim to provide our customers with the most accurate and most satisfactory experiences possible.

Give Compare.com a try today. We promise, you won’t be disappointed with your savings.

Gabi vs. Compare.com: How do they stack up?

Gabi FAQs

• What is Gabi? – Gabi is a car insurance comparison site that lets its customers view and compare car insurance quotes side-by-side based on their personal information and driving record.
• How is Gabi different from Compare.com? – Both companies let you compare different insurance companies' rates but, with Compare.com, you’ll find not only more rates but more accurate rates with better customer service. We will find you cheaper final prices and help you save more money compared to Gabi. And we don’t just mean a couple of dollars. We’re talking up to $75 a month.
• Is Gabi an insurance company? – Gabi is not an insurance company. Rather than selling insurance, Gabi gathers other companies’ quotes and compiles them into an easy-to-read list for your comparison. Gabi does not actually sell the insurance policies but acts as a middleman between you and the insurance provider.
• Does Gabi have physical offices? – Gabi is headquartered in San Francisco, but they operate almost entirely through their website and mobile app.
• How does Gabi protect your personal information? – When you go through the process of building a profile, Gabi guarantees that they protect your information from outside sources, although how they go about doing so is unclear.
• What are the pros and cons of Gabi? – Much like Compare.com, Gabi lets you view multiple insurance rates in a clean, easy-to-read list. They list all of the estimated prices so you can make easy comparisons and offer quotes on home, renters, car, and umbrella insurances. However, unlike Compare.com, their search scope is pretty limited and they appear to be notoriously inaccurate. They advertise as offering quotes from the top 40 insurance companies, yet, in our search, we only received estimates from 11 brands. With Compare.com, you can find quotes from over 60 different companies and we won’t leave you wondering why you’re paying more than the original quote.
• What platform should I use to compare auto insurance policies? – You make the choice, but look at the facts first. You can’t go wrong with Compare.com. We are more transparent, higher rated, and have a longer history of satisfying customers than our competitors. But, at the end of the day, it’s the savings that count. Go with the choice that will put money back into your wallet. With Compare.com, seeing is saving.