Can you really cut your car insurance costs?

Over the past year car insurance premiums have rocketed. It's said to be a 30% rise. I've heard many complaining their costs have risen 50%. Car insurance companies give several reasons for this. This all seems to have happened since they replaced the car insurance groups 1 to 20 with 1 to 50. It's difficult to know where you are with the new car insurance bands table.

The car insurance companies said part of the reason they needed the change was because of the growing number of car variations, especially in the SUV sector. If you compare 4x4 groups you can see the variation. Some start at group 40 and are very expensive. It's totally different if you look at a small MPV.

However you can cut insurance costs on all types of car simply by shopping around directly. First, you need  big list of insurance companies and phone them all directly. You need to keep going through the whole list even when you think you've made a significant saving. I've seen a best quote of £800 against a worst quote of £2,800 and another best quote of £400 against many at £1,600.

A saving of £2,000 will pay for fuel over 12,000 miles at 40 mpg. A saving of £1,200 easily pays for a years VED, plus replacement parts or might cover one years depreciation.

They are significant savings.

You need to be careful when companies say they specialise in older, younger or female drivers. It doesn't mean they are necessarily cheaper than other companies.

You should also avoid using car insurance comparison companies before you shop around directly. If you use comparison companies first they will have bagged you as their customer so you can't then get a quote directly with 100s of companies they deal with.

The shopping around is worthwhile. It only takes about 2 hours. Divide your saving by two and you have an impressive hourly rate.

Regards
Ralph