How to reduce car insurance premium despite adverse history

sultanoflondon

Hi all,

As a young driver, I am faced with the prospects of high car insurance premiums. Unfortunately, I was involved in a minor car incident in the summer of this year and was forced to attend a National Driver's Alertness Course. No claim was made on my car insurance.

I am worried whether this may increase my car insurance renewal premium, which will have to be paid at the end of March.

Are there any actions that I can take to reduce my car insurance renewal premium, in this specific case, other than the usual (advanced driving courses, no claims, etc.)?

Thank you!

csgohan4

change insurers perhaps?

forgotmyname

Try every make/model of car on the comparison sites and swap cars to a cheaper one?

I was getting cheap quotes on sub 1 litre engined cars last year, but this year 1300 - 1400cc cars were cheaper than the sub 1000cc engine cars.

All very strange.

Aretnap

What do you mean by "minor car incident"?

If you mean that a policeman saw you driving like a pillock and sent you on a course as an alternative to being prosecuted for careless driving or similar, but there was no accident involved, then in most cases you won't have to tell your insurers so it will have no effect on your premium. A small number of insurers (companies in the Admiral group, mainly) do require you to declare these type of courses so read the questions carefully, but the majority don't. If your current insurer does ask, then if it does increase your renewal premium you can always change to one that doesn't ask.

If you mean that you had a minor accident then you'll normally have to declare this even if no claim was made - but the lack of a claim will hopefully mean that the effect isn't enormous. Are you sure that there was no claim though? If there was damage to someone else's car, or a crash barrier etc that you drove into then it's quite possible that there'll be a third party claim against you, even if you didn't claim to any damage to your own car.

Otherwise you can do the normal sort of things to help you get your premium down, eg make sure you shop around every year rather than just accepting your renewal quote, add an older relative with a good driving as a named driver, and consider a policy with a black box (assuming you don;t need to do a lot of nighttime driving, and that scary "incidents" are not too common of course).