Finding the Best Car Insurance deal – The Ultimate Guide

When it comes to finding a great deal on car insurance, you will probably have heard mixed messages. Some people will tell you to head straight for the comparison websites to find the best deal whilst others will tell you that the best deal is found going direct to those insurance companies that aren’t on the comparison websites.

If this is the case, you will probably be left wondering what to do and who is correct. Here is the ultimate step-by-step process to finding the best car insurance deal around.

#1 – Check the quote from your current provider

If you already have car insurance with an insurance company and it comes to that dreaded time of year when you need to renew your policy, the first step that you should take is to obtain a quote from your existing provider. It is obviously easier to stay with your existing provider if at all possible so getting a quote from them to start with is paramount.

When you have the figure from your existing provider, it will also give you a figure to work from. When searching for quotes from other companies, you will be able to compare whether their premiums were higher or lower than your existing provider. If they are higher, you can rule them out right away.

#2 – Check the comparison websites

The next step is to go on the comparison websites. There are often some great deals available on these and a lot of people really will find the best premium on these sites. However, you need to know what you are doing when it comes to the comparison sites so here are a few tips.

Firstly, you need to make sure that you use a few different comparison websites. Some comparison sites will have more insurance companies than others and each will likely feature slightly different companies. Secondly, you should make sure that you are as accurate as possible when filling out the forms on these sites. Make sure that you fill in the details of your particular car as accurately as you can and make sure your occupation is accurate too. All of these small details really do affect your policy by a huge amount when added together.

#3 – Keep track of the quotes

This is an important one. When looking at comparison websites, calling companies or even obtaining quotes from your current insurance provider, you need to make sure that you keep track of all the quotes offered. Doing this on comparison websites is usually quite easy as you can save your results on most of them but if you’re doing things over the phone, you might want to note them down on a piece of paper.

#4 – Contact those companies that don’t feature on comparison sites

As mentioned before, you can often get a better quote from those companies that do not feature on comparison websites. Contacting these companies is a must so get out the phone book or do a quite online search and start contacting a few of these.

Again, you need to make sure that you keep track of the quotes so you can pick the lowest quote later on.

#5 – Contact your current insurance provider again

This might seem a little odd but let us explain. Now that you have a huge number of quotes from other insurance providers, you are in a great position. Your existing provider will want to keep your business with them, as it is very little effort on their part to simply keep you on their system. When you call your existing provider back, you need to tell them that you received a quote from another provider for a lower cost.

Pick the lowest quote you have found from your list and quote this to your existing provider and ask them if they can match/beat it. Tell them that if they can’t at least match it, you will be changing insurance providers.

More often than not, you will manage to lower your premium with your existing provider and this will be less hassle for you. If they don’t match it, simply go for the company that offered the lowest quote for your premium.