Reducing The Cost Of Car Insurance
Car insurance can cost a lot of money if you are not careful. In fact, how careful you are is one of the factors that has a significant bearing on the cost of your car insurance policy, and it is one of the factors that it is within your power to control. Here is a bit more about the ways that you can lower the cost of car insurance.
Risk reduction is key when it comes to making car insurance cheaper. This means lowering the perception of the risk posed to your car as seen by your insurer. There are quite a few ways to do this.
Careful driving can help achieve this perception of reduced risk. In concrete terms, this means avoiding points on your licence from speeding and other offences, particularly being caught using your mobile phone while driving. Points on your licence will result in an increase in the cost of your car insurance policy.
Parking you car is also important. Cars kept in a garage are at less risk of accidental damage and theft, and so are cheaper to insure. The same applies to a lesser degree to cars kept on a driveway, rather than on the road.
Whether the car is parked on the street, on a driveway or in a garage also has an impact. Cars parked in a garage are at the least risk of theft and accidental damage, and so will be cheaper to insure. A driveway is safer than the street, and so less risk means less cost, car insurance wise.
High risk category drivers, such as young drivers under the age of 25 should think about adding a lower risk driver to the policy; this is generally an older, more experienced driver. Even if they will never drive the car, the average risk to the vehicle is perceived to be lower, this can often make the car insurance policy cheaper overall.
It can often be worth fitting security measures such as a car alarm and engine immobiliser, if the car comes without these measures pre-fitted. It is worth checking with your car insurer to check what sort of reduction fitting security devices will have, to see if the cost of the installation will be outweighed by the ongoing discount in the cost of your car insurance policy.
Performance-enhancing modifications, such as chipping the engine, will increase the perceived risk of the car being in a crash ? thus increasing the cost of the car insurance policy.
Security modifications like this, and fitting devices like an engine immobiliser, are worth considering as a long term way to reduce the cost of your car insurance policy, although you should check exactly what level of discount these measures will attract in advance of getting the work done.