Lower Car Insurance

What Can I Do to Lower the Cost of My Car Insurance?

• Accident-Free & Good/Safe Driver:  All auto insurance companies look at an insured’s driving record and claim history when determining the rate for auto insurance.  If you are “accident-free” or have a clean driving record for the last 3-5 years, many insurance companies apply a discount to the premium quote 
• Vehicle Safety Features:  While most of your car’s safety features are automatically incorporated into the rate from your VIN#, it is still good practice to let your insurance agent know if you have optional safety features in case it is eligible for an additional discount.  Does your car have blind-spot detection?  Automatic braking?  Lane Departure Warning System?  Does it have an anti-theft system?  If so, let your agent know! 
• Multiple Car Discount:  If you have more than one car insured on a policy, your policy will receive a multi-car discount 
• Driver Age:  Some companies give an automatic discount to drivers over the age of 55  

• Usage-Based Insurance / Telematics:  This is something that is relatively new and several of our auto insurance companies offer it.  Using either a device that you plug into your car or an app on your smartphone, the program tracks your vehicle usage and driving habits.  Common things that they look for are hard braking, fast acceleration, and night-time driving (between midnight and 4 am).  Some companies give a discount for enrolling in the program, and then additional discounts are available at the end of the monitoring time or at the renewal.  Each company’s program is different, so make sure that you talk with your agent to get the specific information for the company that your auto insurance is with.  
• Bundling your auto/home insurance with the same insurance carrier:  Most of our companies offer a discount if you have your auto and home insurance insured with the same company.  Some companies also offer further discounts if other insurance policies are also written with that company as well (motorcycle, boat, RV, personal umbrella, etc.) 
  • While most companies offer a discount if your auto and home insurance are written together, this doesn’t always mean that it will be less expensive to do this.  Sometimes it is cheaper to have your auto insured with Company A, and your home insured with Company B.  As independent insurance agents, we take that into consideration when we are quoting our customers and look to see which is best for each customer 
• Company Car:  Are you provided a company car or truck that you drive to/from work?  If so, you may be eligible for a company car discount 
• Low Mileage:  Do you put less than 7500 miles on your car a year?  The number of annual miles varies by the company for what qualifies for low miles - one of our companies gives the discount for under 10,000/year
• Good Student:  If your student is between 16-24 years old, a full-time student, and has a “B” average, they may be eligible for a good student discount.  This if for both high school and college students 
• Distant Student:  Does one of the drivers listed on the policy go to college over 100 miles away from home and not have a car with them at school?  If so, they may be eligible for a distant-student discount 
• EFT/Paid-in-Full:  You might be eligible for a discount if are you paying for your policy in full, or are paying up for payments automatically withdrawn from your checking/saving account.   
• Paperless Discount:  Would you prefer to get most of your insurance documents via email instead of through the mail?  A couple of our companies offer a discount if you do! 

• Did you recently retire?  Will your vehicle usage and annual mileage change?  If so, let us know! 
• Do you have a new job and now have a company car?  Let’s discuss whether the company car discount is an option for you. 
• Do you telework from home?  We should review the current vehicle usage and mileage to see if we still have it listed correctly.