Safe driving can save a lot of money on your car insurance. As many insurance firms reward great discounts to good drivers. Drivers are expected to have some amount of auto insurance in most of the states. But it feels like a burden to save some dollars for auto insurance when you are planning to cut down your expenses. There are ways to reduce the car insurance amount and still comply with the law of the states.
In this article, we give you easy and interesting ways to save money on car insurance and stay within the safe coverage limit to protect your finances. The cost of the auto insurance varies with the type of car and with the driver.
What is covered under Auto Insurance?
It is important to understand what is covered under the basic auto insurance policy before you plan your savings.
- Collision coverage: Covers the amount for repairing your vehicle when there is any accident with another car even if it’s your fault.
- Property damage coverage: Covers the amount for damage caused by you to others car or property such as fence, building, mailbox etc.
- Bodily injury liability coverage: Covers the amount for the injuries caused to someone else.
- Comprehensive coverage: Reimburse loss occurred due to any other event like fire, flood, hail, vandalism or hitting an animal.
- Medical payments or personal injury protection (PIP) coverage: Covers the amount for the injuries caused by an accident to you or the co-passengers of the vehicle.
- Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage: Covers the loss incurred due to accident with a driver who doesn’t have an auto insurance.
The Essential Tips:
Tip 1: Understand the insurance needs and assess
Once you glance through the details of what is covered under auto insurance then you can choose which coverage can be beneficial to you. It is very much essential to carefully assess your insurance needs. For instance, if you don’t have enough amount to suffice the amount to repair or replace your car on the event of any accident then you would surely require collision and comprehensive coverage.
Every driver on the road will need liability and injury coverage to protect himself when sued for inflicting personal or property damage. The amount of liability and injury coverage is usually determined by both State and Individual requirements. For example, in, your insurance must pay up to:
- $10,000 to cover medical costs for each individual injured, or up to a $20,000 limit per accident
- $10,000 for property damage liability
- $10,000 for personal injury protection per person
The ground rules of a liability insurance, it should cover the personnel from major lawsuits and provide a financial liability safety net. The assessment of an insurance should be made in such a way that it protects oneself and gives wider coverage on occasion of need.
Tip 2: Keep your credit rating and driving records clean.
The credit rating of a personnel usually determines the amount premium charged on an individual. An individual with a better credit rating might be charged less compared to the one with poor credit rating. This is another reason to pay all your bills on time to get a price on your insurance coverage. Most insurers sought to credit scores to determine the premium amounts.
Safe driving is good for health as well for your insurance premium. Cleaner driving records lower the premiums. Having demerit points on multiple occasions generally costs you higher insurance premiums.
Tip 3: Raise the bar on Deductible
Deductible generally refers to the amount paid before the insurance coverages kicks in. The rule of thumb is keep your deductibles high so that the insurance premiums are low. The bottleneck of having higher deductible is that, when an accident happens, most of the repair cost must be paid from the pocket. So never raise your deductible if you are not confident of safe driving or if you don’t have enough cash to cover the accident costs.
Tip 4: Check for Discounts
Most of the insurance companies offer a wide variety of discounts to its customers. They don’t advertise about the discounts on open platforms. You must do your research and enquire the insurer about the various discounts offered. Most companies offer discounts if you purchase different kinds of insurance from the same insurer like auto and rental insurances. They also offer discounts when:
- You have a clean driving record.
- When you a serving or have served the armed forces
- When you a student with higher grades
- When you complete defensive driving or accident prevention course.
- When you are a doctor, engineer or a professor.
- When your car has safety features like anti-lock brake and airbags.
Tip 5: Update insurance policies
The most important step in reducing the liability claims is to update your insurance policies on a regular basis. If you have not spent on insurance claims, it is better to start now.
Compare the insurance costs offered by other providers before you choose an insurance policy. There are many online platforms which help you in comparing the quotes from various providers.
To conclude, there are a lot of opportunities to save money on insurance claims, being wise and update can protect you from liability claims as well help you in saving insurance investments. Let us be aware of the insurance discounts and use it to the fullest at the time of need.
