Shopping around for car insurance quotes can help you to save money. With insurance premiums seemingly rising year on year, it’s never been more important to undertake a car insurance quotes comparison before you buy your cover.
These days, researching the cost of car insurance has never been easier.
Car insurance comparison websites help you find the right cover at the right price - whatever your vehicle.
However, it’s important that you use a car insurance comparison site correctly to make sure you end up with the right policy for you.
How to use car insurance comparison websites
When shopping for car insurance online, it’s vitally important that you enter the correct information. The quotes will only be as accurate as the information you input and so it is crucial that you complete your details carefully.
When you have input your details, you’ll then see a number of price comparison car insurance quotes. These are generally ordered from the cheapest to the most expensive.
When reviewing your car insurance comparison quotes, consider the following factors:
- Whether the quote includes a discount for buying online
- Whether the discount only applies to new customers and not existing customers (be careful if the cheapest quote is with your existing insurer as this may not be valid for you)
- Whether the quote includes your ‘no-claims’ discount
Car insurance comparison quotes will typically be for a ‘basic’ insurance policy and so may not include protected no-claims benefit, windscreen cover or legal expenses cover.
Be careful when using car insurance comparison websites if you want to cover these risks.
Don’t just compare the price of cover
When undertaking a car insurance quotes comparison, it’s easy to immediately be attracted by the cheapest cover. However, buying cheap cover could cost you more in the long run if the policy doesn’t end up providing the cover that you need.
So, it’s important that you compare the quality of the cover as well as the price. The best car insurance comparison site will also let you compare the various benefits of each policy, letting you compare factors such as:
- Whether a courtesy car is included
- Whether windscreen cover is included
- If you benefit from a discount for paying by direct debit
Buying car insurance normally involves balancing the cost with the quality of the cover. Make sure you include all the benefits that you need when you obtain car insurance comparison quotes.
Remember that car insurance comparison sites don't compare quotes from all of the car insurance companies in the UK, in fact most only get quotes from a small subset of insurers.
This means that if you want to get the cheapest car insurance you need to get quotes from multiple car insurance comparison sites and compare these to quotes from car insurance comparies not on comparison sites, then go for the cheapest option that gives you the cover you need.
