Cheap Car Insurance for High-Risk Drivers

Have you recently been involved in a car accident? Were you at fault? If so, you have experienced the inevitable increase in auto insurance premiums. And if you have multiple accidents or speeding tickets on your driving record, you can expect even higher rates. You still have several options when it comes to getting cheap car insurance.

Improve Driving Record

This will take time but you should make a concerted effort to clean up your driving record. It will require you to be accident-free for a specific period of time. You also need to avoid getting tickets for speeding and other moving violations. Generally, it takes three years for tickets to be removed from your driving record. At that time, you will find that your rates drop, often significantly.

Avoid Filing Claims

Insurance companies also consider claim histories when rating drivers. Customers who frequently file claims pose a higher risk to insurance providers. As a result, they will have higher rates to cover potential losses to the company. Although the most common reason drivers file claims is because of accidents, there are other ways your car can be damaged. Limit the number of claims you submit to only the most expensive and you may be surprised by your lower rates.

Compare Quotes from Multiple Companies

You always have the opportunity to compare rates by getting quotes from different insurance companies. You can do this either by contacting individual insurance providers or by using an aggregator site that provides a one-stop comparison shopping experience for customers by presenting various insurance quotes from several companies at the same time.

It is possible that even as a high-risk driver you will be able to find a good policy with lower premiums simply by shopping around. Each insurance company has its own set of factors it uses to set rates. You may find that you are eligible for certain discounts from one provider that another does not offer at all. By researching all of your options, you will be able to get cheap car insurance that provides the coverage you need.

Auto insurance for inexperienced drivers

The good news for parents is that getting a license to drive at 16 is no longer the automatic rite of passage it used to be. If we go back to the 1980's, about half all sixteen-year olds applied for licenses on their birthdays. That reduced to less than 30% in 2010. Ignoring the cost problems, the popularity of the internet and hand-held technology means teens can get together virtually. There's not the same pressure to actually meet each other face to face. At a national level, there's also a significant reduction in the number of miles we drive. This is not a recent phenomenon arising from the recession. The vehicle miles traveled has been falling over the last ten years. That's a welcome relief for parents because the death and injury statistics for teens in vehicles is alarming. When you put beginners into situations where there's a high element of danger, it's hardly surprising they make mistakes and injure each other.

To calculate the auto insurance rates, every newly licensed driver is given inexperience points. Should they pick up a ticket or make a claim, there's an increasing chance they will be forced out of the voluntary and into the assigned risk market. This will almost certainly occur if they are caught drunk or affected by drugs. The only way to loose these points is to go through years without a claim.

When a teen has a driving license, the parents must decide whether to add the name to their family policy. If there's any chance the inexperienced driver may drive a family vehicle, failure to insure will be counted as a form of fraud and the policy will be cancelled. But if the teen buys a vehicle in his or her name, a separate policy can be issued. Naturally, it will be more expensive than adding the name to the family policy, but it does teach responsibility to a young driver when the auto insurance rates react so precisely to the way the vehicle is driven.

Learn about the usage-based insurance terms and benefits

It’s curious how quickly an idea either takes off or dies the death. What was casually called pay-as-you-go has now become a highly competitive market. If you ever wanted proof of just how competitive, you only have to look at the court roster where you find Progressive suing State Farm and The Hartford for alleged infringement of patents. You may well throw up your hands in despair. We are used to seeing technology companies accuse each other of copying the other’s patent for an on/off switch, but patents also cover any business ideas that no one has registered using those words before. So Progressive claims it registered the idea of using technology to monitor how far and how well people drive and to offer discounts to all the safest drivers. Now we have to wait for a judge to say how obvious this business plan is and that it should never have been registered as a patent. Until then, attorneys are collecting their usual high fees to fight it out to the death.

So what exactly is Progressive offering that it feels must be defended so aggressively? In most states, this insurer was the first to offer a black box for monitoring driving behaviour. The most recent version is called Snapshot. What makes this so interesting is you can run it for a one month’s trial while holding your existing policy. This gives you a direct comparison and tells you exactly how much you will save if you make the switch. If you decide not to switch, there’s no comeback. Progressive simply recovers the hardware link and looks for business elsewhere.

Why is usage-based insurance the best chance for cheap car insurance? The answer comes in two different ways. The first relates to the number of miles you drive and the time of day you drive them. The statistics show low milage drivers have the smallest numbers of accidents, particularly if you drive at off-peak times. Second we come to the way you drive. Gentle acceleration, modest braking, no violent swerving all indicate a safe driver. That earns you cheap car insurance. All the insurer has ever wanted is proof you are safe. Now technology supplies that information you can earn maximum car insurance discounts.