How To Reduce Your Auto Insurance Rates?

By Author: Marcus Stalder
Total Articles: 491
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Most of us tend to question the fairness of the price we are charged with for having our cars insured at some point. For some it's the financial hardship that makes them overview their basic spendings. For others it's a simple desire for paying adequate prices. It doesn't matter what is your motivation really. As long as you feel that you're paying too much money for insuring your car you'll always keep thinking of ways to reduce this cost. But there's no need to waste your time on that because we are here to suggest you some helpful tips on cutting down your costs effectively. There's no big secret about it and you have probably considered some of them. So, what can you do in order to make your auto insurance a bit cheaper?

Modify your coverage

As you may know, your policy carries different types of coverage. And the more you have it the higher is the premium. So in order to reduce your rates you will have to modify the coverage amounts or exclude the types of coverage you don't need. Be reasonable, however, since you do not want to strip down your policy to the bare minimums and risk being under-insured.

Raise ...
... the deductible

Deductible is the amount of money you have to pay out of own pocket before the coverage kicks in. The higher is the amount the lower are the premiums you're charged with. The usual deductible is set around $100-200 and by raising it to $500 you will typically get 10% off your premium. You can even push the deductible up to $1000 to get an even better cut. However, always make sure to have a deductible you can actually afford. Otherwise you will just make your insurance too expensive to carry by having a deductible you can't meet.

Improve the security

Installing an anti-theft alarm, additional air bags, engine-lock system or any other gadgets that can improve passenger safety or reduce the risk of having your car stolen will automatically result in a discount from your provider. However, make sure to inform your insurer about any additional devices you've installed in your vehicle in order to make sure they are properly documented and will be covered in case of a claim. Otherwise you risk falling into the exclusion cause when your losses won't be covered because you didn't inform the provider about the custom parts your car has.

Shop around for better rates

Either when looking for a brand new policy or when it's time to renew your current one, it always pays to spend some time for checking car insurance quotes from different providers. The insurance market is always changing and what couple be a really competitive policy several years ago can now make you overpay for the same coverage you would get better car insurance quotes from other providers. With so many sites out there offering free car insurance quotes it really takes just a couple of minutes to get the full picture of the current market. And if there's a policy that's way better than your current one maybe it's time to change it?