Cheap auto insurance is not as elusive as most car owners think.
Sure, it's hard to get, especially if you're young or with a bad driving
record. But if not, finding affordable insurance for your car can
provide a challenge. With comprehensive comparison shopping, detailed
review of your coverage and some discounts you can actually find pretty
cheap auto insurance deals. However, if this doesn't help either there's
just one thing that may be standing in your way of getting low-cost
coverage - the car itself. Many people seem to overlook the fact that
the car they're trying to insure also has a hefty weight in the premiums
charged by the insurer. And there can be a huge difference when trying
to insure different car models even within the same price range. So what
makes a car cheaper to insure and how to find the right car to get cheap auto insurance with?
Safety is essential
The paramount factor in a car for insurers is its safety, which is
measured both in crash tests and real-life claim reports. For most
people a car is just a metallic box on wheels that gets smashed on high
speed. However, it really makes a difference for people inside it how it
acts during a collision as their lives will depend on it. The safer is
the car and the lower the risk of injury in it the cheaper it will be to
insure - that's a universal insurance law. Everything counts - seat
belt quality, airbag number and position, car body stress points and
many other things - the only goal is to keep the people inside intact.
So the safer is your car the easier it is to get cheap auto insurance
for it.
Secure it well
Car thefts are still quite widespread despite the all-time low since
the 1970's as proclaimed by the police. But it still costs insurers
billions of dollars to settle claims caused by theft every year. So they
are rather sensitive when it comes to car security - the less it is
protected against theft the higher is the premium. So it's highly
recommended to fit your car with at least a couple of anti-theft devices
that can make the thief think twice before trying to get into the car.
An alarm system is good, a geo-tracking device is also nice, but even
the good-old steering wheel lock is enough to make the insurer drop the
costs a bit. Just make sure not to spend a fortune on security as we're
trying to save money here, don't we?
Damage to other vehicles
While safety and security seem rather obvious, car owners tend to have a hard time understanding the liability cost factor
of their vehicle. To describe it in simple words, liability costs arise
from the damage delivered by your vehicle to other vehicles or objects.
This is the amount of money your insurer will have to pay to the other
party through liability coverage. And different vehicles have different
liability costs associated with them. As a rule of thumb, larger cars
tend to deliver more damage than smaller cars due to the difference in
mass. So it's always harder to get cheap auto insurance for an SUV than
for a small hatchback.
Repair costs
Now this is something the car owners can easily understand. All cars
have different repair costs, even if they are from the same price range
or class. Some cars use cheaper parts that are easier to get on the
marketplace, while others employ expensive parts that need to be ordered
directly from manufacturers. This results in a different repair bill
for the same type of damage inflicted to the car, and it's the insurance
company that has to pay the bill. So they will be very sensitive about
the repair costs implied with every car being insured. That's why the
models that are cheaper to repair always get cheaper insurance than
those that have expensive parts.
