September 7, 2009
Auto Insurance Rate — Ways To Qualify For Cheaper
You will pay lower rates if you opt to pay your premiums yearly and not monthly. True, monthly payments might be convenient but it’s also costly.
Every check that is processed attracts a fee. In a year, your monthly checks would be processed separately because they are all different transactions. This means that you’ll pay transaction fees 12 times..
There are also administrative costs to your insurer that result just from taking monthly payments. For instantce, it costs insurers millions of dollars annually to mail payment notices..
These costs plus a profit margin for this feature is factored into your premium making it higher than another of the same profile that pays yearly every year.
Insurers give give customers who have remained loyal a long term discount and accident forgiveness. Some insurers will give you up to 5% in discounts once you’ve been with them for up to three years while others will give you such a discount only when you’ve stayed for up to five.
The accident forgiveness discount means that your insurer will not raise your rates if you file just one claim. These are all incentives for you to stay with them for as long as possible. The longer you stay, the more you’ll save.
However, what you may save by switching to another insurer might far outweigh all the incentives you’ll get depending on what your rates are and how much another insurer is ready to offer.
If you want to keep your rates down, do NOT “pimp your ride.” Things like changing your tires to bigger ones than specified by the manufacturer, adding equipment that will increase your car’s horse-power will cost you a lot more. Any changes to your vehicle takes your rates up.
Young drivers are statistically very bad risks. More so, the younger an under-25 driver, the more they’d have to pay. That is why teenagers pay a lot more than 22-year olds.
Therefore, as much as possible, do not place such a driver on your own policy. It will drive it up by a huge margin. Your teen driver should have his/her own policy. This will be made possible if you sign an exclusion form.
It’s a fair price for them to pay to enjoy the adult privilege of driving. An addition argument in favor of this is that your teen will be more willing to take measures to reduce what he or she pays. The full implication of this is that your teen will be a lot safer as they’d do their best to avoid inflating their rates.
Your might be paying a lot more than you should because of some really unnecessary add-ons like towing. Do you know that your credit card company might have already given you towing as an extra benefit?
Even if yours does NOT add this kind of service, a dedicated towing service from a third party will serve you better and save you more than adding towing to your auto insurance policy.
And…
You will save a lot if you only have between 25-30 minutes. Visit, receive and compare auto insurance quotes from several insurance quotes sites. The cheapest offer should be what you go for easily.
However, you have to look beyond just the lowest price to the best price/value. The cheapest may not offer the best price/value for you as a person.
To learn more visit Auto insurance in Virginia. Chimezirim Odimba writes on financial matters.
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