For most people, the biggest running cost involved in automobile ownership aside from fuel is the insurance premium. Due to the fact that driving without insurance is illegal, there is no way to avoid paying for car insurance, but thankfully there are several steps that you can take to reduce the cost.
All insurance providers use a universal ratings system to assess the relative risk of one type of vehicle over another. This scale runs from one, for the smallest, cheapest, and least powerful cars, to twenty for large, powerful and/or valuable vehicles. So before you buy that souped up, fuel injected dream machine, think about whether you are willing to pay the higher insurance premium that it will entail.
1. Keep the number of listed drivers down. If more than one person is going to be using the vehicle, then their details must be added to the insurance policy for that vehicle. As a general rule, the more listed drivers that you have on your policy, the more expensive that policy will be.
2. If someone is going to be using your vehicle only occasionally, or for a limited time period, then you may be able to add them to your policy for a specified time period, which works out a lot cheaper than having them as permanent additions to your insurance policy.
3. Increase your excess amount. When you claim on an insurance policy, it is typical that you will have to pay a proportion of the claim yourself, an amount known in insurance speak as the excess. By increasing the amount of excess that you are willing to pay in the event of a claim, you can bring down the cost of your insurance policy, although you should make sure that you can afford to do so, or your insurance may be invalidated.
4. The most effective way of bringing down your insurance premium is to build up a substantial no claims bonus. However, if you claim on your policy, then you will lose this bonus, so it may be worth your while financially paying for smaller repairs and the like out of your own pocket.
5. One of the main ways in which insurance companies manage to get new customers is by offering cheaper car insurance to customers who switch their insurance over to them. However, you should beware of firms that have not been around for long, or do not have the same levels of accreditation as their more established rivals.
By far the cheapest and most convenient way to buy car insurance is to carry out the transaction online. Most companies will give you an instant, no obligation free quote, and you can compare quotes from hundreds of different insurers by using price comparison websites, although you should be aware that some of the cheapest deals can be found with companies who do not list on these sites.
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