It’s estimated that, on average, Americans spend $1503 per year on car insurance. If you’re paying a lot more than that, you might want to learn how you can find an insurance company that’ll provide you with a cheaper rate.
However, choosing the right insurance company is anything but easy. Should you go for the company with the best ratings or the one that’s the cheapest? Is it better to conduct manual research or should you just use a comparison website?
Read on to discover five tips that’ll help you choose from the many insurance providers on offer. Use these tips, and you should be able to save your sanity, as well as your dollars when the time comes to renew your policy.
1. What Matters Most to You?
The companies that provide the cheapest insurance might not provide the best level of customer service. That said, the companies that provide the best customer service, might not be the cheapest.
Though it’s not always the case, you need to accept there are going to be some tradeoffs. Provided you know what matters to you, it’ll be easier to identify which tradeoffs are worth putting up with and which ones aren’t worth the trouble.
2. Do Ratings Matter?
There are many ways insurance companies are rated, and it’s vital you investigate each method. For instance, there are 3rd party sites like TrustPilot, that’ll show you how existing customers rate the company.
Some websites will also provide you with something known as a ‘complaint ratio.’ Using such sites, you can see the number of complaints lodged against an insurer and the magnitude of these complaints.
3. Does the Insurer Offer Any Discounts?
Certain insurance companies will offer discounts to people, provided they take specific steps.
For instance, an insurer may reduce your bill if you install a tracking device in your car. If you let the insurer do this, they’ll offer you a lower price, as long as this device shows that you’re driving safely.
Other companies might offer you a discount if you use the kinds of services mentioned on this website.
4. Are There Other Car Owners in Your Home?
If multiple car owners live at the same address, insurers may provide a plan that covers everyone under one policy.
Such a plan can often be much cheaper than a normal, ‘individual’ policy. Not all insurers offer this, and so it’s something to keep in mind if you’re looking for a new insurance company.
If you’re going to invest in such a plan, be sure to read the small print. Make sure you know what will happen if the other person has an accident.
You’ll also want to ask the other person how they’re going to pay the insurance premium. If you can’t trust the other person to make their payments on time, such a policy might create more trouble than it’s worth.
5. Use Comparison Websites
Comparison websites can help you find the right insurance, at the lowest price.
If you want to get the best results with such websites, you need to know what you want ahead of time. That’s because small changes in your policy requirements can have a big impact on the results returned by the website’s algorithm.
If you’re new to buying insurance, this might mean you need to read up on what all the technical terms mean. Only then will you know what you do, and don’t need from your insurance plan.
Do You Know How to Find the Best Insurance Providers?
The tips in this post should help make it easier for you to select from the many insurance providers on offer.
Ideally, it helps if you start your research a couple of months before your policy is up for renewal. In doing so, you reduce the odds of making a rash decision and going with an insurer that’s charging you more than they should.
Thinking about leasing a car? Read this post to learn how you can select the right model for your needs.