These Bad Habits Are Hiking Up The Cost Of Car Insurance!
Let’s face it, car insurance can be outrageously expensive for what you get. First of all, you’re forced into buying this insurance product, which already makes it somewhat different from many others out there. Usually, insurance is a luxury you pay for if you want that added bit of protection. With car insurance, it’s a legal requirement if you want to actually drive your car.
Secondly, car insurance providers are just there to make money. They can run all the soppy adverts they want, claiming they’re here for you, but it’s all a lie. This is reflected in the cost of your premium, which can be sky-high if you’re not careful. Providers don’t want to give you compensation, that’s a fact. They offer it, it’s their job to pay you it, but they want to prevent you from making claims at all costs. They will also cover themselves by giving you high premiums.
Unfortunately, your car insurance premium could be extremely high because of a series of bad habits you’re guilty of making. Once you learn what these bad habits are, you can try your best to correct them and lower your premium.
Driving too often
How often do you drive your car? Too often.
Do you really need to drive it to the shop that’s only a 10-minute walk away? Do you need to drive it to work every single day? Driving your car too often is a bad habit because it means you add mileage onto the clock. An insurance provider will look at this and give you a more expensive premium. Why? Because the more miles on the clock, the more danger there is of accidents occurring. This is down to the sheer time spent on the roads, but also a little bit to do with the state of your car. A car that’s being driven a lot – and has been driven loads – has a higher chance of breaking down than one that gets driven sparingly.
Thus, you have more opportunities to make an insurance claim, and your provider will give you a costly premium to counter that.
Speeding
Are you one of those people that speed all the time? You get away with it most of the time, but now and then you end up with a speeding ticket. It’s fine, you think, you pay what you owe and get on with your day. Then, you go to take out some new car insurance and wonder why on earth the premium is so much higher than it used to be.
Speeding is a sign that you are a high-risk driver. Obviously, people that speed are more likely to be involved in an accident than those that drive normally. There’s no way of debating against this, and car insurance providers won’t offer high-risk drivers the best rates. From their perspective, if you’re a high-risk person, you have to pay a high price to get insurance.
Claiming compensation
Your car has had a little knock, and you need to repair it. Perhaps it’s just a small dent or your wing mirror has been knocked off. Either way, you don’t want to pay for it, and you have car insurance. So, you make a claim and get compensation to cover it. Sounds clever, right? Wrong. The more claims you make, the higher your premium will rise. Car insurance providers hate customers that keep making claims, so they will punish you with extortionate rates.
Okay, you’ll stop making claims for every little thing – but what about after a car accident? Again, avoid making a claim and seek out car accident lawyers who care about you instead. They will help you get compensation without bringing your insurance provider into the equation. Sure, your premium will still rise after an accident, but at least it doesn’t rise again because of a claim.
Texting
Don’t use your phone while you drive!
Get out of this bad habit, no matter how good you think you are at multitasking. The simple fact is that texting and driving will cause car crashes. Therefore, you will have to pay more for your car insurance because you keep getting involved in crashes. To make matters worse, you’ll be at fault for all the crashes, so you’ll need to make insurance claims to cover the cost of paying for the other driver’s repairs.
How many of these bad habits are you guilty of? Cut them out of your life and you can stop your car insurance premium from rising too high.
*This is a collaborative post.
