Personal Finance and Investing

The car insurance market can appear complicated to potential consumers, not least with the sheer amount of possible providers available. However, there are tools at your disposal and steps which can be taken to ensure the competitive market is used to your advantage in obtaining a competitive car insurance quote.

First of all, you should be conscious of some of the basic factors which most car insurance providers base their quotes on.

Personal factors such as where you live and how old you are; Security of the car. If your car can be kept in a garage over night and is fitted with a security device such as an immobiliser then the chance of theft is reduced; Paying the policy up front. Monthly payments can add considerably more to the cost of the policy, although are often seen as a much easier way to pay; Increasing the excess on your policy. This shifts more of the financial risk from the insurance provider to you for minor claims; Reducing your miles per year

There are also different types of car insurance available and choosing the correct one to suit your needs is important. The most commonly recommended policy is fully comprehensive, which insures you and your vehicle against an accident or theft. The factors listed, including your personal circumstances and type of car, will ultimately have a bearing on the cost of the policy.

Other forms of insurance are termed third party. These policies are often cheaper but the level of cover is very basic. This can include fire and theft, but it is important to remember that it will not cover you for damages to your vehicle if involved in an accident.

Once you have considered the personal circumstances of your cover, and are clear of the factors which influence the cost of car insurance, one of the best ways to compare car insurance [http://www.lloydstsbcompare.com/car_insurance_lloyds.aspx] is via online comparison websites. Typically, such online comparison sites will search numerous car insurance providers with your given details, and will return a range of policy options.

In addition, online comparison sites will not only offer you access to some of the most competitive car insurance policies on the market, but they can also provide a clear indication of what factors are influencing the cost of your policy.

Indeed, using such tools and understanding what factors can increase or decrease the cost of your policy can go a long way in obtaining the best car insurance quote.

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Lets start off with a simple explanation of how insurance works. In the good old days before those kind men got together in the Lloyds coffee shop, people were responsible for their own losses. If the horse pulled their cart into a ditch and this broke the wheel, the owner had to put his hands into his pock’ets (which fortunately had already been invented) and pay someone to repair the wheel. But once people could share the risks, life was suddenly better. If you gather together a big enough group of cart owners, each will only have to pay a small amount into the central fund to cover the losses of the few who have accidents. Those men at Lloyds were on to a winning business formula. Moving into modern times, the idea of spreading the risk is the same and, with thousands of people in each group, the cost of loss is divided into small premiums. But, with profits under pressure, the insurance companies came up with a new variation on the old theme. Suppose they could persuade their customers to accept the risk of some of their losses. This would then become self-insurance for part of the risk. The rest would be paid by the insurance companies. So the deductible was born. You agree to pay the first portion of any loss. In the case of traffic accidents, most of the fender benders are minor and don’t cost much to repair. That means you pay for most of the repairs yourself and the insurance companies get richer. Ironically, if no-one opted for the deductible, the increase in the premium for everyone in the group would be trivial.

So let’s get to an actual example to see how it works. If you agree to accept a deductible of $1,000, you will be given a discount on the premium. Say you save 10% over the year. Now that’s a good saving if you manage to get through the year without having an accident. But suppose your luck is not good and you have an accident. The bill for repairs is $900. You put your hand in your pocket (pockets are such useful things – always seeming to have money in them) and pull out the dollars. Was your 10% saving over the year more than $900? If not, you are making a loss, not just on the insurance policy but, if you had to use your credit card, on the interest added to the $900 until it is paid off. What would happen if your run of bad luck continued and you had a second accident in the year? Do you have another $1,000 as savings or available to borrow? Perhaps we should not be so pessimistic. Worst case scenarios are always better applied to other people and never to you.

The higher the deductible you accept, the more of the risk you are accepting. Cheap car insurance is a wonderful thing to have so long as your luck holds up. But if your luck fails, the maximum deductible is going to empty that magic pocket of yours. And here’s the thing – you can be the safest driver in the world, always super careful, always following all the rules, and then you meet a dork behind the wheel of another vehicle and suddenly you’re wrapped round a tree. So look for cheap auto insurance, but always look at your cash position and ask yourself how well you would cope if the worst happened. Deductibles are good for people with a margin of financial safety.

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