When deciding how much your car insurance premiums will be, your car insurance company will take several factors into consideration. The main ones are as follows…

Type of car : Changing the make and / or model of your car can drastically reduce your insurance premiums. Though you might love your current car, it really could be costing you thousands of extra dollars each and every year. For instance, people who drive an unfashionable car will pay less insurance than those who have fashionable cars because they are less likely to be stolen. A car with inbuilt safety features will save you money in the long run too, as you will be less likely to be in an accident.

Driving offences : Your driving record plays a major role when it comes to determining your car insurance rate, with a good driving record meaning big savings. Having speeding tickets or a history of getting into car accidents means that you are a high risk driver, and you will end up paying more for your car insurance. A poor driving record does not mean that you will always end up paying a lot for insurance though, so long as you seem to be making amends for past mistakes. The longer it was since your last offence, the less bearing it will have. Also, you can take an advanced driving course to show that you are now a better driver.

Location, location, location : Your insurance premiums are affected by how an insurance company rates the city you live in, or even the particular street that you live on. Whether this works out in your favor or not is a bit of a lottery. The zip code of the area where you live, and the immediate areas around it, is evaluated in terms of the number of accidents that take place there each year and the number of vehicles that were vandalized or stolen. People living in areas classified as ‘high risk’ by insurance companies may well have to pay twice as much as someone living across the other side of the city.

Your work : You will probably have to pay higher car insurance premiums if your job requires you to do a lot of driving. People who are retired, unemployed, or work from home can all be eligible for discounts. Whilst changing your occupation to reduce your car insurance premium is not really sensible, there are a couple of things that you can do. You can ask your company to provide you with a company car, or you can ask them to make a contribution to you car insurance premiums as they are responsible for inflating them.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 9:36 am and is filed under insurance premiums. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.