How to save money on your car insurance

How to save money on your car insurance

If you are currently considering a car insurance policy, whether that is because you are looking for car insurance for the first time or about to renew a policy you already have, you could balk at the price. However, there could be good, if easy-to-overlook, reasons why it is so high. If you know many of the factors that influence premiums, you can help yourself to surprisingly effectively cut the price. Here are several clever ways in which you can do that.

Be careful which job title you specify

You might want to be very specific about your job role when filling in an application for car insurance. However, being so particular could cost you money. For example, specifying “chef” adds £98 to a quote that would be offered to “kitchen staff”, Mirror reports. Similarly, there’s an added outlay of £86 if you call yourself a “music teacher” rather than just a “teacher”, while a “construction worker” will be more out of pocket than a “builder” and, to an even greater extent, a “bricklayer”.

Therefore, if your job could be put into multiple categories, check that car insurance quotes you get offered are for each of them. Oh, and if you aren’t working at all because you are retired or a full-time parent, check for definite that you indicate this, not “unemployed”, on the application form. There will be a saving of nearly £300 in it for you.

Don’t be a Johnny-come-lately or last-minute-Linda

If you are currently on a policy the renewal date for which is three weeks away, now is a good time to start considering which policy you should follow it up with. People who begin looking this early will save, on average, £280 – or even more if they are relatively young drivers.

While you could choose to simply renew your existing policy rather than switch, money-saving expert Martin Lewis warns against this on the ITV website. He insists that you should “NEVER automatically accept your renewal quote – it’s almost always a rip-off.” Millions of drivers do accept this quote, but it costs them £113 per year.

However, it’s not just a matter of when you should start your search, but also how. A time-effective method is calling an insurance broker like Call Wiser. This Hampshire-based company can look at quotes from dozens of the UK’s most popular insurance firms and come back to you with one especially competitive quote. For all of this, you won’t have to wait any longer than 10 minutes after initially making the call. You can alternatively request a quote through Call Wiser’s website.

If possible, don’t “pay monthly”, but instead upfront

If your financial situation looks set to shape up much better over the long-term than in the near-term, then there is an obvious attraction to paying your insurance in monthly instalments. However, most insurers that offer this option also charge interest on the payments. That interest can be horrendously hefty; Lewis has noted: “The worst offender I’ve seen charges up-to-93% APR interest.”

So, if monthly payments were what you were originally considering, you should carefully assess whether those payments would add up to a much greater total cost than an upfront one. If so, selecting the one-off charge might still be beyond financial palatability – in which case, you could act on Lewis’s advice to pay the monthly charges with a year-long-plus 0% credit card. Just make sure that the costs are entirely paid off within the year to avoid any expense on top of those.

Add another, lower-risk driver on the policy

If you know an experienced driver who has a clean driving license and good no-claims history, you could add them to your policy and so lower your premiums. Be careful not to specify them as the car’s main driver if they aren’t; this is illegal. It’s legal for you to add a secondary driver, however.

Ask for that driver’s permission before doing this. If you do go ahead with this tactic, the average risk to the insurer would be lower – hence the possibility of reduced premiums. It’s a particularly good move if you are young and the other driver is older and responsible. However, everyone should at least give it a try.

A good, old-fashioned tip: look here, there and everywhere

Despite all of the advice given above, sometimes, finding a great policy can result from a strategy as simple as looking long and hard for it. However, if you are seriously time-strapped and, therefore, unable to properly follow this advice, you could ask an insurance broker to do it on your behalf. Getting in touch with the friendly staff at Call Wiser can lead you to a policy that has been tailored to meet your particular needs but won’t place too much pressure on your bank balance.

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