Car insurance - how to cut costs and get a great deal

Car insurance is a necessary evil, but there
are ways of reducing your premium come renewal time If you drive a car, then it needs to be covered
by insurance - it's the law. You might not necessarily provide your own
cover, but either way you need to be insured to get behind the wheel. The minimum cover you can have is for third
party damage - so other road users are covered, but you and your own vehicle are not - but
you should really aim for the most cover that you can afford and fully comprehensive insurance
is often no more expensive. ANPR automatic number plate readers help the
police to cross-reference vehicle registrations against insurance databases to see if a car
has valid cover at the time it's being driven.

If you haven't got the right kind of insurance,
or any cover at all, and you're stopped by the police, then you will be liable to a fixed
penalty of 300 and have six points added to your licence. If proceedings escalate, you could be facing
a court case where you may get an unlimited fine and also be disqualified from driving. The police will also be able to seize your
vehicle. The majority of road users are covered by
insurance, and the most recent Driver Power survey in 2016 revealed that the average Auto
Express reader pays more than 400 a year for their policy.

But of course that's an average, and some
drivers will face far higher or lower bills than that. Ways to save on you car insurance. There's no escaping the fact that if you simply
let your car insurance roll over every 12 months without shopping around, you'll be
paying a lot more for cover than you should. Simply logging on to an insurance comparison
website should help you see whether you're paying through the nose for your premium,
and these sites should be your first port of call in the weeks coming up to your renewal.

Once you're armed with some online quotes,
it's time to get dialling. First, try your existing insurer. Phone them and talk directly to a sales advisor,
as this will be the easiest way of negotiating a new price. If it can't match or undercut your lowest
quote at the first time of asking, it's worth telling them that you will be moving on if
it can't do anything to help.

This should sway the company your way, and
if they can oblige with a similar quote, then you're on to a winner, because then you won't
need to fill out any forms or supply new information, as all you'll be doing is paying a lower bill
or monthly direct debit. One point to make is that some of the larger
companies, such as Aviva and Direct Line, don't supply insurance quotes to online comparison
sites, so it would be worth researching these firms separately just to see if they can beat
your best offer. If you can pay for your insurance in one go,
that could save you some cash. Paying a lump sum means you don't have to
worry about it for another 12 months.

But most insurance firms know that customers
usually don't have the means to pay in one go, so they may charge interest if you take
out a monthly direct debit to pay for your cover. Check your car insurance policy
Be aware of any extras that are loaded on top of the basic policy. Extras such as legal cover or cover for possessions
might be included. But if you have home insurance, the latter
could well already be covered, so you'd be paying extra for something you don't need
and might be quite limited in it coverage.

If you have more than one car, then a multi-car
policy could help you to save money. Put both cars on the same policy with one
company, and let the insurance company the names and driving history of everybody who
will be driving them, and there are savings to be made over having separate cover for
each car. Interestingly, while there are three levels
of insurance cover - fully comprehensive, third party, fire & theft and third party-only
- the lower levels of cover won't necessarily provide the cheapest quotes. A study of insurance costs by The AA revealed
that, on average, a fully comprehensive policy is nearly 200 cheaper than third party fire
& theft  the thought behind this being that somebody who takes out fully comp cover
is more responsible than somebody who just wants the bare minimum cover available.

Another way to reduce the cost of cover is
to attain a recognised advanced driving course. Do this, and sign up with a driving association
such as the Institute of Advanced Motorists, and you can easily see another 10 per cent
cut from your premium. Kitting your car out with technology can also
help to cut costs. Pam Quinn, from the British Insurance Brokers
Association, told us: Using the latest in technology can help reduce costs.

For example, driving with a dash cam lowers
premiums by 10 per cent on average. Weve also found that new drivers can
cut costs by fitting a telematics box. Industry data shows the devices save 212
on average for new drivers. Finally, we recommend purchasing your insurance
via a cashback site, as you can earn as much as 70.

Similarly, by clicking through from one of
these sites when buying breakdown cover, you can earn up to 30..