If you buy a new car and you don't have auto insurance, you often have to wait for hours to get auto insurance coverage before you can drive your new vehicle off the lot. Now, in several car dealerships in California, you can have coverage in a matter of minutes.

What happens when you already have insurance and buy a new car? Read Auto(matic) coverage for new cars.

TurboCoverage, based in Palo Alto, Calif., has launched a new auto insurance service for car dealerships that allows uninsured car buyers to instantly secure coverage and drive away insured.

Currently, TurboCoverage is focused only on the non-standard (high-risk) and uninsured market, but the company hopes to expand into the standard market. Jim Grim, president and CEO of TurboCoverage, says that the company will move into the standard market by adding insurance companies that sell insurance to the standard market, as well as by keeping drivers who graduate from non-standard to standard status.

"For consumers, TurboCoverage eliminates one of the worst parts of the car-buying experience and gives them greater control of the process," says Grim. "For auto insurers, TurboCoverage delivers the lowest customer acquisition costs for the non-standard market compared to any offline distribution channel."

TurboCoverage says that approximately 3 million insurance transactions, or 20 percent of the car buyers in the 22,000 franchised auto dealers in the United States, purchase car insurance at a dealership each year. More than 25 dealerships in northern California are using TurboCoverage. By late summer, the company expects to begin expanding the program into 16 additional states, says Sean St. Clair, TurboCoverage's director of business development.

Consumers can buy auto insurance in about 10 minutes at a TurboCoverage dealership. They can select coverage from three companies: Infinity Insurance Co., Interstate Insurance Co., and Workmen's Auto Insurance. The company has just negotiated contracts to sell policies from five additional carriers: Leader Insurance; two other Infinity companies, Infinity Special and Infinity RFVP; TOPA Insurance; Unitrin Specialty/Financial Indemnity Co.; and Western United.

TurboCoverage makes its money through insurance commissions and splits a "car-buyer policy initiation fee" — basically a broker fee — with car dealers. TurboCoverage installs workstations in dealerships that allow customers to purchase the insurance on their own. Dealerships cannot offer advice or help during the insurance purchase. Customers can pick up a phone in the workstation and be instantly connected with a TurboCoverage customer service representative.

The customer can either pay the insurance premium by credit card or by an electronic funds transfer from their bank account. Two copies are printed out in the workstation: one for the customer and one for the dealership's finance department. If the policyholder has future questions or needs to make changes to their coverages, they can either call TurboCoverage or the insurer directly.