My Personal Finance Blog

Doesn’t it feel sometimes that when it comes to auto insurance it’s like playing the game no one tells you how to play it right and where the rules are written without your consent? Well, to ease the situation, here are some auto insurance rules most insurance companies won’t tell you about.

1. If your credit rating is good you will have better rates.

Most of the insurance providers, whether big or small, use credit information to determine the rates you will be charged with. That’s because numerous studies have shown that there’s a direct link between a person’s credit rating and the probability that the very same person would file an insurance claim. Those who have poor credit scores tend to file claims more often than drivers with good credit reports. And we know how insurance companies don’t like insurance claims.

Tip: If your credit report is not that good, don’t haste with buying auto insurance. First, make sure you have settled all your debts and closed unused credit lines. After doing this wait for a month and your rates will be much lower than you would expect.

2. The model of your car affects your premiums.

Insurance companies don’t disclose the exact methods they use to calculate their rates, but your car make and model certainly plays an important part in the equation. All insurance providers have charts on all car models and their respective insurance cost based on theft rates, repair costs and overall safety.

Tip: Try purchasing a car with reasonable repair costs, good safety scores and low theft rates in your area in the first place. This will always give you the chance of having cheap car insurance.

3. Bad driving means higher rates.

Most insurance companies will raise your rates up to 40% of the initial premium you’ve paid if you have a single at fault accident. However, not all companies follow this rule.

Tip: There are insurance providers that have higher tolerance for first-time accident drivers. So when you purchase your cheap auto insurance policy or ask the provider if they have such incentives and what are their rules.

4. If your friend borrows your car and ends up in an accident you will still have to pay higher premiums.

It doesn’t matter who was driving the car if it was with your own consent. It will be you who will file the claim and this will eventually lead to increase in your premiums.

Tip: In case you didn’t give consent on using your vehicle your friend will be liable for the accident. However, if he or she doesn’t have own insurance or the damage resulted exceeds the amount of coverage contained with his or her policy the other party may come to you in order to settle additional medical and repair costs.

5. Official cancellation is required when switching providers.

You are free to cancel your policy any time you feel the need to. All that is required is to inform your current provider in written form.

Tip: After you have searched for cheap auto insurance and chosen another provider you can simply contact your insurance agent and inform him that you want to cancel your current policy from a certain day. In most cases the company will send you a filled out form where only your signature will be required.

Most individuals look up for cheap car insurance, and it is understandable within the context of increasing costs and the uncertainty of the family’s financial balance. But, the program is really complex and somehow tricky, that occasionally, the insurance consumer has issues figuring out where the actual financial savings really lie. Here are a handful of aspects that you simply have to cautiously consider before putting your signature on any insurance policy.

1. You could advantage from cheap car insurance with great coverage and reduced excess level by constructing up the no claims bonus. There are famous insurance businesses that discount their car insurance offer with up to 65% if you hold car insurance for over 5 years without making any claims.

2. It is greatest not to include young drivers to the car insurance if you would like a great financial offer for a comprehensive policy.

3. Policies with greater voluntary excess are the least costly. Cautiously assess your scenario before deciding for this kind of cheap car insurance, because within the scenario of the accident, you will need to pay an excellent offer of the repair costs. This isn’t usually the most handy option even when it means reducing the premiums.

4. Drive securely! There are insurance businesses that even organize training to educate you about increasing security as well as safety while driving. In the event you attend this kind of a course, you may decrease the costs and obtain cheap car insurance.

5. In case you own a number of cars, you need to check the multi-car insurance policies that most businesses now provide. But, you have to carefully evaluate between the policies to find out these with the greatest cost-coverage proportion. Special discounts for multi-car insurance could attain up to 23%. And if you include other special discounts, you could make severe financial savings.

6. Get a car with a more compact engine. It might not be this kind of a bad idea to change your high-power engine vehicle for a more compact one. This could extremely well be just a change in dimension, not in level of quality. Then, you could actually appreciate cheap car insurance, without sacrificing the policy coverage.

There are lots of extras or additional choices that could be additional to car insurance, and each and every insurer has its unique offer for a wide range of clients. The good part concerning the extras is the fact that they enable a particular flexibility and customization chance for that insurance policy holder. This really is actually what makes them attractive.

But, you could only get a fair and square idea concerning the correct cheap car insurance by performing a little of research and evaluating a number of existing choices.

If you are tired of paying the high cost of car insurance, then you need to know that it is possible to look for and find cheap car insurance.  In fact, many people could save hundreds of dollars off their current yearly insurance premiums if they simply take the time to shop around and do the research necessary.

In times past, you would go down to the only insurance agent in town and sit down with him and arrange for all your insurance needs.  Your parents did this and you may have done this too.  Your agent handled everything for you, and you simply wrote out the check.  However, the world of insurance companies has drastically changed from what it used to be.  Instead of only three or four companies that handled the insurance needs of 90 percent of the country, there are literally hundreds of insurance companies that are taking care of people throughout the United States.

The internet has actually greatly increased the availability of cheap car insurance because it has allowed for increased competition between the different insurance companies.  Older, more established companies are being forced to keep their premium rates in line with the newer companies that have very little overhead and that have found more ways to keep costs low.  In fact, studies show that insurance rates for new customers have gone down repeatedly over the past few years.

Because of the move away from a local office or branch, many insurance companies have a lower overhead cost.  They are not paying a lease for a building or paying salaries to employees.  Their office is essentially the computer, so they pass those savings on to the customer in the form of the different packages that are available.  Some of these agents work for the older, more established companies, but in the newer, internet world.

Using the internet to search for cheap car insurance quotes is quite easy, but it is important to spend enough time at it to really be sure that you are getting the best deal. If you only spend fifteen minutes, you might be able to find some great quotes, but it is important that you understand what you are getting.  You must provide certain information, such as your age, state of residence, make, model, and year of car you want to insure, and so forth.  Many companies are moving away from requiring any sensitive personal information until you are ready to purchase the policy from them.

However, the more detailed you get on the information you provide, the more accurate the quote will be.  You may want to use the coverage numbers from your current policy as a basis and then you can compare everyone equally.  You will also find that there are some websites that allow you to input your information one time and they send out and do a search for your, coming back with multiple quotes from different companies.  You can then make comparisons and find the cheap car insurance quotes that you were looking for.  experts say that  if people would examine their insurance premiums every three to five years as a minimum, they could literally save hundreds of dollars.