Innovative Ways to Save Money on Your Car Insurance Coverage
Fortunately, there are some proven strategies you can use to lower your rates, no matter who your current car insurance company is. While each company uses a different set of underwriting criteria, they do have some things in common, and that means that these strategies should work no matter which company insures your ride.
Review Your Deductible
Increasing your deductible is one of the surest ways to lower your premium. When you raise your deductible, you in effect shift more of the risk on to your own shoulders and away from the insurance company. That lower risk on the part of the insurance company is reflected in lower premiums for you.
You might think that raising your deductible is not feasible, but you can self-insure that higher deductible by taking the premium savings and putting them away. If you save $20 a month by raising your deductible from $250 to $500, in a year's time you will have almost enough to cover that potential $250 cost. If you do not have an accident, you will have paid for that higher deducible in full, and you can continue to enjoy the premium savings month after month.
Drop Full Coverage
If you drive an old car that is worth only a few thousand dollars, it might no longer be worthwhile to carry full coverage on the vehicle. Full coverage can be expensive, and it might not pay off the way you think. If your car is totaled in an accident, the most the insurance company would pay is the book value of the car.
Take a few minutes to review the cost of full coverage, then compare it to the book value of your car. If the cost of coverage is more than 10% of the value of your car, you might be better off without that coverage. You can use the same self-insurance strategy you used with your deductible, putting money aside from the premium savings to pay for repairs yourself or finance the down payment on a new car.
Install an Anti-Theft Device
If you do decide to maintain full coverage on your vehicle, you can save money by installing an anti-theft device. Car theft costs insurance companies millions of dollars a year, so the more you can do to keep your car where it belongs the better. The insurance company will consider your car a lower risk if it is equipped with a high-tech, or even a low-tech, theft-deterrent system. You can install something as simple as a steering wheel lock, or as elaborate as a hidden GPS tracking system, but either way you can save money.
Just call the car insurance company and ask what kinds of anti-theft systems they recommend, and which ones they provide discounts for. You might even be able to purchase the anti-theft devices through the insurance company and save even more.
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