Buy a Car That Can Lower Your Auto Insurance

If you’ve been shopping around for a new car, you may be wondering how changing your vehicle will affect your car insurance rates. Most insurance companies will allow you to get updated car insurance quotes with just some basic information about the car, like the year, make, model, and number of miles the car has been driven, but if you’re shopping for a car specifically to drive your car insurance rates down, this may not be the most efficient way to find information.

What Affects Your Car Insurance Premiums

Regardless of your personal qualifications, the type of car that you drive will play a significant role in your car insurance premiums. The effect your car will have may seem strange in some cases. An older car, for instance, may be much cheaper to insure than a newer car, even though you might expect the older car to be more likely to break down. Insurance companies typically base their decisions on factors like how high the rates of claims and accidents are for a particular year, make, and model, how likely the car is to be stolen compared to other vehicles, and what the average repairs for the car will cost.

Safety Ratings To Predict Premiums

Luckily for consumers, this data is readily available for analysis. The Insurance Services Office is responsible for providing several points of statistical data to insurance companies, and they assign each vehicle a rating denoting the risk an insurance company can expect to take on by insuring a specific car. If you are getting your car insurance quotes through an agent, he should be able to tell you the ratings of any cars that you are looking at. The Highway Loss Data Institute provides data about vehicle safety ratings, and while a high safety rating does not always translate into a reasonable insurance rate, it is often a reliable predictor of which cars are most likely to qualify for special discounts through your insurer.

Take Everything Into Account

Of course, there are other ways to lower your car insurance quotes without buying a new car, and it is always important to consider a variety of factors when making any large purchase. You should, however, consider the effect that a new car will have on your insurance premiums when looking at prices and options, and if you expect to keep the car for a long period of time, even a few extra dollars per month can add up to a significant discount – or penalty – throughout the life of the car and the duration of your car insurance.