If you’re feeling the crunch of tough financial times, you’re not alone. People throughout America are looking for ways to lower their expenses to deal with rising inflation. One monthly expense is auto insurance.
Every driver needs to at least have third-party insurance. However, you should also have collision insurance, if not comprehensive cover. If you cause a collision and your car is totaled, collision insurance will save you tens of thousands of dollars.
The good news is that you can lower your auto insurance costs without skimping on the cover. All good insurers offer discounts, and sometimes you just have to ask.
Ask your insurer about these 7 common auto insurance discounts.
1. Defensive Driving Discount
Do you want to become a better driver and save on insurance? Doing a defensive driving course from a certified driving school will help you achieve both. When you’ve completed a defensive driving lesson, you will qualify for a 10% to 15% discount on your liability, collision, and personal injury cover. You’re also less likely to be involved in a car accident.
Your insurer may have asked whether you had taken a defensive driving course in the forms you filled in, but you can get the discount even if you’re already a paying customer. Check with your insurer which driving schools will make you eligible for the discount.
2. Low Mileage Discount
The average American drives 12,000 miles every year, but you might drive a lot less. This is especially true in a time when many more people are working from home (although stats show that many people are back on the road in 2022). If your car sits in the garage most days, you may qualify for a discount as high as 20%. Less than 7,500 miles is generally considered low mileage.
3. Multi-Car Discount
If you have multiple cars in your household, you can save a lot of money by putting them all under the same policy. Some insurers give multi-car discounts as high as 25%. This is great for couples and people with children. You do have to be related by blood or marriage for most insurers to approve a multi-car policy.
In a similar vein, some insurers will provide you with discounts for insuring all of your assets with them. If you’re a homeowner, you can bundle your home and auto policies and potentially get up to 25% off your auto insurance.
4. Paid-In-Full Discount
Most people pay for their auto insurance on a monthly basis, as this is what is most affordable to them. However, if you do have the money to pay for six months or a full year upfront, your insurer will give you a discount. These discounts range from 5% to 10%.
You may be able to get other payment discounts, including for things like setting up automatic EFTs.
5. Good Driver Discount
Insurance companies often provide discounts for so-called good drivers. You can be considered a good driver if you have been accident-free for three to five years.
6. Senior Driver Discount
This may seem counterintuitive, as the risk profile of senior drivers tends to be higher, but some insurers offer a senior driver discount. They will still charge you more on your premium based on your age but will provide a 5% to 10% discount on the overall cost. You may have to take a mature driver improvement course in order to get senior driver discounts.
7. Driving Discount
The biggest development in auto insurance discounts over the past few years has been the tracker-based driving discount. These discounts come into play when your insurer deems you to be a good, cautious driver. To measure this, they install a monitoring device in your car.
This device measures things like speed, mileage, how hard you brake and accelerate, and how hard you turn. The better you do on these metrics, the bigger the discount will be. You may be able to save as much as 30% on your premium simply by driving in accordance with these measures.
The use of this technology among insurers is becoming more common, and the metrics and rewards are likely to get more nuanced. Advancements in insurance these days tend to be on the tech side, and you may see more discounts like these across your policies.
The above 7 discounts are all fairly common in 2022. Ask your insurer about the discounts which apply to you.
