How to Reduce Car Insurance Prices
Everyone wants the best car insurance prices with the best coverage. Finding the policy you need at a price you can afford can be tricky, but it is possible.
The best way to find exactly what you need is to compare coverage, policies and quotes. But other factors influence your car insurance prices, too. Let’s examine these issues in more detail.
Tickets
Traffic tickets for aggressive driving, speeding, failure to yield or unsafe lane changes can really jack up the price you pay to get insured. Insurance companies charge higher rates to drivers with tickets because they are statistically a higher risk. So practice defensive driving and avoid getting tickets to help keep car insurance as affordable as possible.
If you do get a ticket, keep track of when the offense happened and ask your auto insurer to re-quote your policy when the ticket is removed from your record. The amount of time this takes will depend on what state you live in.
Accidents
Your accident rate also helps determine insurance rates. A first accident may or may not heighten your rates, but it is best, of course, to avoid accidents altogether whenever possible.
Overall accident trends can also make a difference. More accidents generally mean more insurance claims, raising your likelihood of paying more for the same coverage as someone else who has no accidents on their record.
More than one in four auto accidents in 2003 resulted in bodily injury (BI) claims, according to a recent study by the Insurance Research Council (IRC). However, auto accident rates and their severity have decreased overall in recent years, due to auto safety campaigns and the manufacture of safer cars.
If you live in a state where fault factors into the equation and you are at fault in an accident, your insurance company must not only pay for the injured party’s medical treatment and other accident-related expenses, but also for the pain, suffering and emotional distress the victim incurs as a result of the accident. These types of settlements can cause insurance claims and prices to skyrocket.
Safety
Safety features such as built-in child safety seats, anti-lock brakes, traction control and airbags greatly reduce the number injured in accidents each year, according to the Insurance Information Institute (III). And car insurers often give significant discounts for these safety features, lowering car insurance premiums.
The overall safety or “crashworthiness” of your vehicle also comes into play here. Your rates can vary greatly, based partly on the type of vehicle you drive and your car’s safety rating as measured against other cars on the road. Therefore, buying or leasing a car with a high safety rating should also be an important consideration.
Seat belt enforcement programs also support lower policy prices. Statistics show the more drivers buckle up, the safer they are from injury…and safer drivers mean fewer claims and a lower insurance cost.
Theft
Installing and using anti-theft devices may also result in car insurance price discounts. In fact, they may actually lower your rates up to 35 percent, if you install apparatuses such as car alarms and vehicle tracking devices.
We are all susceptible to car theft, but some cars are more popular with thieves than others. The higher the risk of theft associated with your car, the more you're likely to pay for insurance. Take this fact into consideration and find out your car’s risk of theft and insurance prices run before you buy that new car.
Affordable Car Insurance
You can keep car insurance prices at bay and get the coverage and protection you and your family need. Just do your best to keep tickets, accidents and thefts to a minimum, drive safely—and let us help with the rest.
