Auto insurance is required in 45 of 50 states in the US, and it’s a complex and highly technical product. Everyone needs to have it, and nobody really looks forward to renewal time, or insuring a new vehicle. You get your driving habits examined, your home, and all sorts of other invasions that you put up with in the name of “getting a better rate“.
To effectively get cheap car insurance, you’re going to have to do some legwork. First, gather up your driving records – just like your credit report, it’s always worth it to dig up your driving records every year or two and look for errors. These are compiled by human beings, and like credit reports, if you tell them to fix something, they have to do it. Your driving record is used by your insurance carrier to set your rate; it’s roughly 25% of the factors used.
Another significant chunk of what drives your insurance premium is gender and age. Men have higher insurance premiums than women do, because men tend to do stupider things behind the wheel. Older drivers have lower rates than younger ones, for much the same reason. If you’re still in the “young and male” demographic, it pays to really do a lot of price comparisons on when comparing quotes. You may already know that the highest rates are for male drivers under age 25, but like anything else, there are ways to reduce that, for example by having a grade point average of at least 3.0 will frequently get you better rates.
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