Tips for saving on your car insurance

These days, pride of car ownership is second only to home ownership, yet just as with owning a home, there are many costs to be considered as part of the joy of owning a car. There are costs to maintain a car, costs to run it, park it, wash it and ‘bling it’ (if you so choose), then to add insult to injury there’s the cost to insure your car for everything from accident to theft and even force majeure. And whilst you oftentimes do not have the flexibility to control how much it costs to park, maintain or run your car, you can usually control the cost you pay for car insurance with a little time and effort.

Car insurance companies consider a wide range of factors when they price your policy, some of which you cannot change (such as your age or gender), some of which you can (your address and make of car), and some which you can directly influence. Here are some of the later things to consider;

 
Manage risk
One of the first things you can do to keep your car insurance premiums low is to play by the rules of the road, for safer drivers and drivers with no history of claims are perceived as less risky to insure. Likewise, ensuring your car has security devices installed and is parked in a secure location, safe from the risk of theft, vandalism and storms will reduce the perceived risk to insurers.

Manage your mileage
It may sound odd, but keeping the miles you rack up on the odometer to a minimum will also impact the amount you pay for insurance, as to insurers, the less you drive your car the less risks of collision and claims. So whilst using public transport in order to keep your car off the road may sound somewhat counterintuitive, it will help you get a cheaper price on insurance.

The way you pay
An increasingly popular way to save on automotive insurance is to pay your premiums annually, for whilst many insurance providers offer the ability to pay your insurance in instalments, this often comes at a cost. If you can manage it, paying your insurance in one go will definitely save you money, as will increasing your agreed excess as this will reduce your premium.

The car itself
Irrespective of what you do to make your vehicle look or perform better – from adding rims, sunroofs or engine improvements – insurers will only pay out up to the agreed market value of your car. So in essence this means that the cheaper the car, the cheaper your insurance will be because the value that your car is insured for is the most the insurer will pay out. An additional consideration is that even though you may be making modifications to your car to make it look better or perform better, you may inadvertently be making your car more expensive to insure as you could be making it more attractive to thieves.

Remember to shop around online
Shopping around online for car insurance quotes and then comparing different insurers’ policies and premiums against each other in one go can save you hundreds of dollars a year. For whilst many insurers use consistent factors to price their policies, some insurers take other facts into account as well. So shop around to see if your age (e.g. 40+), driving experience (e.g. have you completed an advanced driver training course?), car make (e.g. classic car that aren’t driven often) or location (e.g. car is parked far away from roads) are factors that may reduce your insurance. Shopping around online for car insurance may take time today, but it may save you thousands in the future.