In the UK, until January of 2010, all vehicles were divided into one of 20 car insurance groups. This system was then expanded into 50 groups, allowing cars to be classified more precisely. The lower the group that your car is classified into, the lower risk insurance companies view it as. The owner of a car that is rated a 12, for example, would pay less for premiums than a car rated a 35. The amount you have to pay on your premiums reflects how high a risk your insurance company calculates that you are.
How Groups are Determined
Your insurer will take the value of your car, its make and model, power, performance, and extra features into account when deciding which of the car insurance groups it falls into. They look at how costly it will be to repair the car in the event that it is involved in an accident, including parts price and availability and the cost of labour. Other considerations are the performance of the car and whether or not it has security features. A car in a higher group can be brought into a lower group and thus made less expensive to insure with just the installation of some safety devices.
How to Find the Group of Your Car
It is wise to check into which of the car insurance groups a car falls into before you purchase it. If you know the group, you will be able to predict how expensive its premiums will be. You can often get this information from a car dealer, but there are places online to look it up, as well. Thatcham provides a complete list of vehicles along with the groups that they fall into.
Making High Group Insurance Affordable
Even if you happen to have a car that falls into one of the higher car insurance groups, there are some ways to make your premiums more affordable. You might consider discussing a mileage limit with your insurance agent. The insurance company will see this as making your car a lower risk for accidents because it is not on the road as much, making it less likely that you will have to file a claim. Demonstrating that you are a careful, responsible driver can help by allowing you to qualify for a no claims or safe drivers discount. If your car does not feature much security, having some security devices installed will bring your premiums down quite a bit by making it less likely for the vehicle to be stolen in the first place and easier to retrieve if a thief does get away with it. An alarm will ward off many thieves before they get inside the car, while an immobiliser or lockdown device will keep your vehicle from being driven away. In the event that your car is successfully stolen, a GPS locator can help the authorities to find it right away, without having to wait for someone to find it in some other way.
Saving Through Comparison Sites
You can find reasonably good deals by using car insurance comparison sites. Even if your car is high on the scale of car insurance groups, you can save quite a bit on your premiums if you just compare online before settling on a policy. You can obtain quotes from dozens of companies and separate out the ones that have the right price with the best coverage for more research. It is important to look into individual companies before you purchase a policy through them. Before working with an insurance provider, you should know not only how trustworthy they are, but how likely they are to pay out on a claim without attempting to get out of it.
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