What You Drive may Decide How Much You Pay for Your Car Insurance
Several factors decide the cost of your car insurance, like your age, where you stay, your marital status and what you drive. Well, you can’t do anything about your age, but you can choose your car that will cost you less on its insurance. Some cheap car insurance tips will show you how to do that.
Understand the Types of Coverage
When you buy car insurance, what is it insuring actually? Though you are purchasing only one insurance policy which covers a particular automobile, several components build up the final cost.
Bodily Injury Liability: This covers injury and death claims that are done against you, and also legal expenses, in case someone gets injured or dies due to your car.
Property Damage Liability: This covers the claims for property that is damaged by your car in an accident.
Medical Costs: This bears the medical costs for injuries to yourself as well as other occupants of your car.
Uninsured Motorist Protection: This covers the costs of injuries to you and other occupants of your car caused by uninsured or hit-and-run drivers. You may get “underinsured” coverage too, to cover the claims made by you against a driver with insufficient insurance.
Collision Coverage: This covers the damage caused to your car equal to its book value. This type of coverage holds a deductible. This is the amount you need to pay before the insurance starts. The less the deductible, the more is the premium. Though it is legally not necessary, many leasing companies and lending firms need collision coverage.
Comprehensive Coverage (Physical Damage): This covers the damage caused to your car due to vandalism, theft, wind, fire, flood and other non-accident factors. This also holds a deductible.
Sports Car or SUV
In case of a SUV or a sports car, your insurer may charge you higher for your protection while driving it.
Premiums also depend partly on the cost of the vehicle, which influences the replacement cost if it is totaled in an accident or is stolen. It is also considered that how pricey is repair of the vehicle while deciding the cost of the insurance. Even surcharges may apply to cars that are stolen frequently or have undergone frequent accidents.
If you have fallen in love with a sports car, you may have to pay more for its insurance. Insurance of a high performance car may easily cost double or even triple the insurance cost of an ordinary model.
Even SUVs – market’s hottest segment – have greater insurance rates than mid- or full-size cars. However, some models of SUVs are comparatively cheaper to insure. There are reasons for why insurance premiums are higher for SUVs. Firstly, they are pricier than most cars; secondly they are amongst the most regularly stolen vehicles.
Shop Around
Shopping around is the best bet when there is time for renewal and consider changing to a new insurance policy rather than just renewing. This may save you quite a lot.