Does your auto insurance rate just seem too high? The first thing you should know is how most insurance companies will rate you. Insurance companies will rate you based on risk experience. Since more male drivers are involved in auto accidents compared to female drivers, Insurance companies will assign higher rates to male drivers. A majority of the time, insurance companies have had to pay off claims caused by younger drivers. Read more about some of the rating factors insurance companies use. Below a few other things you may want to consider when shopping for low cost auto insurance.
What type of Vehicle are you driving?
If your concerned with high insurance rates, the best thing to do is choose a car with four doors and a small engine. You can take this one step further and choose an (inexpensive) car like this with additional safety features like ABS, airbags, etc. If the vehicle is paid off and under a few thousand, you may want to consider only covering it with liability. This coverage will only pay for damages, injury, death caused, by you, to another motorist. If you want to be covered you will need to select comprehensive, collision and medical payments be added to your policy. Although I personally prefer having this coverage, having it will increase your premium significantly.
Shop with a future effective date:
If you put some time in between when you put a down payment on a policy and when your insurance policy becomes effective, you may see a lower rate. This is called a future effective date discount. My only guess why this discount even exists is this, shopping ahead of time shows responsibility compared to shopping for coverage the same day you need a policy to go active. Some companies implement this discount while others don’t. If you want the possibility in earning a future effective date discount, shop and put your down payment on a policy that won’t be active for 10 days. In other words, shop 10 days prior to your current policy’s renewal date.
Setup up payments via EFT
If you cannot make the full six month payment for maximum savings, your second best choice would be to set up automatic payments from your checking account with EFT (electronic funds transfer) option. This saves the Insurance company on paper costs, mailing, etc., and you will be awarded a discount for doing this.
For more information regarding saving more on your next auto policy check out our auto insurance tips found here. Also feel free to instantly compare rates of several insurance companies with only having to feel out a single quote form.
