Best places to find insurance deals

• Best sites for life insurance quotes: Insure.com, AccuQuote.com. Insure.com asks all the right questions about factors that can affect your premiums, and it quickly provides quotes from 40 companies. Want personal help, or have a medical condition that could affect your purchase? Call AccuQuote.com at 800-442-9899 and speak with an agent.

• Best site for auto insurance quotes: InsWeb. InsWeb (www.insweb.com) provides instant quotes from up to six major companies (the number varies by state), plus quotes by phone or e-mail from American Family, Nationwide and MetLife. (For rates from Progressive, Geico and Esurance, you'll have to go directly to the companies' sites.) To get an accurate price, you'll need to provide your Social Security number and let the insurer look up your driving record and credit history.

• Best site for homeowners-insurance help: AccuCoverage.com. AccuCoverage.com can answer your toughest question: How much coverage to buy? Run by Marshall & Swift/Boeckh, which provides building-cost estimates to the insurance industry, the site can calculate how much it would cost to rebuild your house. There's a reasonable fee of $7.95, and it takes about 10 minutes to fill out an online questionnaire about your home's age, size and other features.

• Best site for health-insurance quotes: eHealthInsurance.com. In the market for private health insurance? Go to eHealthInsurance.com, where you'll also find quotes for short-term policies, student policies and health savings accounts. The site lets you quickly compare benefits and prices. If you have a medical condition, call eHealthInsurance.com at 800-977-8860 for personal help, or work with a health-insurance agent in your area (to find one, go to www.nahu.org).

• Best site for quotes on Medigap and prescription-drug coverage: Medicare.gov. To find a Medicare supplement policy, check out the personal plan finder at www.medicare.gov/mppf. For help choosing a Medicare Part D drug plan, go to the prescription-drug plan finder (www.medicare.gov/mpdpf).

• Best long-term-care insurance: Genworth, John Hancock. For married couples who are in good health, Genworth offers the best value (including a 40 percent spousal discount), plus it covers the broadest range of home-care services. John Hancock offers more lenient medical underwriting for people with certain health conditions, and may be better for single individuals.

• Best health savings account: HSA Bank. When you buy a health-insurance policy with a high deductible (at least $1,050 for an individual or $2,100 per family in 2006), you may also be eligible to open a health savings account that gives you multiple tax breaks. The best place to go is HSA Bank (www.hsabank.com), which offers low fees, a knowledgeable call center and plenty of investment choices. You can open an account online for a set-up fee of $18. There's also a monthly fee of $2.25 until your account balance reaches $3,000.