Car Insurance Tips

ONE IN three consumers is paying over the odds for car insurance, the RAC reported earlier this year. Nearly half of Brits do not bother to seek a number of quotes and one in four renew their car cover instantly, without using the opportunity to save hundreds of pounds. And given that new regulations have increased the pressure on insurers to raise premiums, it might be worth taking some of the steps towards lower premiums. 

Step 1: Ensure you're getting the correct cover

Insurance premiums (the name of payments made to insurance companies) depend on the insurer, the level of cover and how risky you're perceived to be. Therefore start by defining your cover and ensuring you’re as low a risk as possible.
Things often aren’t as straightforward as you think, for example counter logically fully comprehensive cover can be cheaper than third party policies, so always check..

a) Beware monthly payment plans 

Beware 'pay monthly' options - usually the insurer actually just loans you the annual cost and then charges interest at hideous rates on top. So either pay in full, or if you can't afford it, use a credit card with a lower APR rate (or better still, a 0% credit card for spending ensuring your repayments are big enough to clear it within a year.)

b) Tweaking your job description to save money

Insurers decide prices depending on historic risk assessments, and your occupation plays an important part in this. To help we’ve built a fun tool to show the riskiest jobs and see if small tweaks to you job description could save you cash.

Step 2: Correctly combine comparison sites 

Comparison sites zip your details to hosts of insurers' and brokers' websites, scraping their data off the screens to report back the cheapest. Yet as they don't all compare the same sites, to maximise the spread of quotes, you need to combine them, so we've analysed the order that gets you the max. quotes in the min. time

a) The 'Big Two' Comparison Sites Miss
Two competative insurers, Direct Line* (currently offering '52 days free insurance') and Aviva* (currently offering '2 months free' for those with 4 years+ no claims), refuse to be included by any comparison site so are worth checking separately.

Once you've found the cheapest

Once you’ve found the cheapest from the screenscrapers; there are two important checks to make:

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  Double check the quotes
  Click through to the insurance provider's own website to double check the quotes, as to speed up searches some comparison sites make a few assumptions (see what to check).
• Examine the policy's coverage Check whether it's suitable. So if you want "free car hire" if your car is being fixed, is it included? Plus while you’re there it's worth playing with the policy details to see if you can finesse the price down; look at the excess, and whether adding drivers cuts the cost (see hints and tips article).
  This tool by Find* allows you to check the coverage of two different polices side by side.

Specialist cover inc. young driver, provisional & multi-car

If you’re looking for specific cover, the mass nature of comparison sites may not find the very best results. These additional notes should help you cut further chunks off.

Multi Car Discount

Other tricks to cut the cost
If you aren't a young driver, but still want to look for an even better deal, try some of the following...

• Guarantee to beat your renewal by 10% If the comparison services above haven’t found a policy cheaper than your existing quote, First Direct says it will beat new customer's renewal quote from their previous insurer by at least 10%, providing your annual premium is over £200 for comprehensive or £120 for non-comprehensive.
  
• Temporary Car Insurance
  
  It's possible to get temporary insurance for 1 to 28 days, such as to to drive a friends car protecting their policy and no claims. Budget's Temporary Insurance, Insure Daily, TempCover.com* and RAC are amongst some of the available policies.

Step 3: Grab Hidden Cashback and Haggle

By now you’ll know the cheapest available provider, yet you may be able to cut the cost even further.

The top cashback deals

Once you know who your cheapest provider is, you need to check there aren’t any hidden cashback deals, these can be as high as £120. If your second or third cheapest quotes weren’t too much more expensive see if cashback’s available for them too and find the overall winner.
The step-by-step list below takes you through a variety of options to improve your deal.

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  Step 1: Check cashback websites
  These sites carry paid links from some retailers and financial services providers; in other words if you click through them and get a product they get paid. They then give you some of this cash which means you get the same product, but a cut of its revenue.
  Yet be warned, until it's in your bank account, this cashback is never 100% guaranteed, and getting the right policy is always paramount. Therefore never simply choose based only on cashback, see it as a potential added bonus once you’ve picked the right cover.
  Those new to cashback sites, should ensure they read the Top Cashback Sites guide for pros and cons before using them. Otherwise use the Cashback Sites Maximiser tool to find the highest payer for each insurer.
  Though beware if you've used comparison sites first, the cashback site may not track unless you clear your computers cookies. Further information on deleting or controlling cookies is available at AboutCookies.
  
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  Step 2: Get £25 cashback via comparison sites
  If cashback sites don't list your insurer then comparison sites Beatthatquote* (only via special links like this, not direct) and MoneyExpert* both pay £25 cashback if you compare then get a policy via their sites.
  
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  Step 3: Check special deals
  If you can’t get cashback it’s worth noting a few companies have special deals not mentioned by comparison services. These currently include (listed alphabetically):
  
  

  Aviva: Aviva* has a '2 months free' offer for new customers who have a history of at least 4 years no claims.
  Beatthatquote, via Argos: Argos (which uses the Beatthatquote comparison) is giving a £30 giftcard for buying insurance via its site.
  Be Wiser: Insurance broker Be Wiser* is giving free RAC membership for policies bought via its website.
  Confused: There are two offers (one only can be given per policy) for buying via Confused, although you need to get a quote via its partner sites: 1000 Nectar points (worth £10); £20 Matalan voucher for Matalan reward card holders. The Matalan card is free but you need to buy the policy in one transactions, eg not save the quote to come back later.
  Direct Line: Direct Line* has a '52 days free insurance' offer, equivalent to 14% off, for new customers until 30 June 2010.
  TescoCompare: Buy your car insurance via TescoCompare* and you'll get a free lost key recovery service for 1 year (RRP £9.99). Read the terms and conditions.